Hans A. Rosenthal interview and transcript, March 28, 1995

Professor Dr. Hans Alfred Rosenthal was born in Berlin in 1924, son of a book seller, Alfred Rosenthal. In 1935 he had to leave his school and attend the Jewish Mittelschule in the Grosse Hamburger Strasse. His uncle was arrested in November 1938 and sent to Sachsenhausen. From October 1939 to April 1940 Rosenthal went to Hachsharah in the Niederlausitz. Later he was a slave laborer in a munitions factory. During the so-called Fabrikaktion in February 1943, he was incarcerated in the Rosenstrasse and released after the famous demonstration there by Christian women. Rosenthal survived the war with relatives of his Christian mother. After the war Rosenthal attended the Berlin University, and later became director of the Institute for Virology of the Humboldt University.

Rosenthal's father went to Shanghai in April 1939 on the "MS Viktoria." There he contracted turberculosis and stayed in the hospital for 6 years. He returned to Germany with the first transport of refugees in August 1947.