Why is it seiner used in the following sentence?
Das Schicksal des jüdischen Mädchens, das 1933 mit seiner Familie aus Frankfurt....
I do not understand why seiner is used instead of ihrer.
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Sign up to join this communityWhich gender does Mädchen have in German? Which should be the possesive pronoun accordingly? (hover the mouse on the box if you cannot solve by yourself after that).
Because Mädchen is neutral (das Mädchen), the possessive pronoun is sein. Familie is femenine, thus seiner, since mit needs dative.
As you seem to have understood, seiner refers to das jüdische Mädchen. Now she is undoubtably female, the pronoun however depends on the grammatical gender of the noun Mädchen, which is neuter (because it is originally a diminutive, but that is not important, you just have to know the grammatical gender of a word and cannot rely on it agreeing with a natural one). For the same reason, it is
[..], das 1933 [...].
For the forms of the personal pronoun, you can consult the table on Wiktionary.
In the same way, I can say (rather clumsily):
Ich bin eine Person, die versucht, dir mit ihrer Antwort zu helfen.
It does not matter whether I am a man or a woman, Person is a female noun.