Hanni Weissenberg had to perform forced labor in Berlin from 1940. The 16-year-old lost her father during that year and her mother died two years later, having received insufficient medical care as a Jew.
At the end of February 1943, the young woman narrowly evaded the major raid on Berlin’s factories. She found short-term refuge with Christian friends, who helped her to dye her hair blond so as not to be recognized so quickly. Weissenberg then stayed for five months with the sisters Elfriede and Grete Most in Charlottenburg. When she needed new accommodation, she revealed her Jewish origins to an acquaintance of the sisters, Viktoria Kolzer, who took her in. She helped Kolzer to care for her sick husband Jean until he died in 1944. The two women survived the air raids on Berlin together. After her liberation, Hanni Weissenberg stayed with Viktoria Kolzer until she emigrated to Paris to join her uncle in 1946. She married in her new city and later campaigned for her helpers to be honored.