Frank-Loebsche-Haus

The building dates from the 15th century and from 1601 onwards functioned as a pubic house and a stage, a stopping place where the horses, crew and travelers of stagecoaches could eat, drink and rest and where travelers could get on and off, where cargo and horses could be changed. The tavern, called Zur Blum, was run by the related Kempff, Stiehler, Geropp and Schneider families until well into the 19th century, until after the arrival of the railway, the stagecoaches disappeared.^[1] In 1870, the then owner Georg Friedrich Schneider sold the building on Kaufhausgasse 9 in Landau to banker Zacharias Frank for 16,000 guilders. The four-winged, three-storey medieval building included a house with three cellars, three stables, a courtyard with colonnades, a well, a barrel store, several ovens and four trumeau mirrors.^[2] After the death of Zacharias Frank on 27 July 1884, the estate passed to his widow Babette as the sole heir.

Following Babette Frank's death on 10 October 1891, the surviving children became owners of the house, but only daughter Sophie, the widow of Landau banker Leo Loeb, still lived in her birthplace. Michael Frank, one of her brothers, was a banker in Frankfurt. His son Otto was Anne Frank's father.

​In 1901, the property became the exclusive property of Sophie Loeb. Her daughter Olga inherited the building in 1927, but after she fled to Luxembourg in the late 1930s to escape persecution by the Nazis, the city council negotiated about the purchase of the historically significant building, but subsequently decided no to go through with it. A forced auction also ultimately did not take place.^[3]

During the war, the house in Kaufhausgasse functioned as one of the three infamous "Jew houses" in Landau, where Jews still living in Landau were forced to stay. On 22 October 1940, the 23 Jews living there were deported to Gurs, a French internment camp, and from there to Auschwitz and Theresienstadt in 1942.

Olga Loeb was interned at the Cinqfontaines (Pafemillen or Fünfbrunnen) monastery in 1941^[4] and from there deported to Theresienstadt on 6 April 1943. She survived and returned to Luxembourg.^[5] Following the years after her death on 16 September 1946, the estate was repeatedly offered for sale to the city. As early as 1951, the National Office for the Conservation of Monuments financed urgent repair and restoration work, and in September 1959, the house became the property of the city. However, plans to rename the building "Anne Frank House" and to establish a regional museum and documentation center on the history of the Jewish community of Landau in the building were not realized.

On 25 April 1980, the residents of Landau founded an "Association of Friends of the Frank Loebschen House", which arranged for the renovation and financing of the house and in September 1983 extensive restoration and extension work began. As of 1987, the building has been used as a cultural center and exhibition space^[6] and since 2003 a permanent exhibition on the history of the Jews in Landau has been set up here.^[7] It also houses the Frank-Loeb-Institut Landau.^[8]

A Stolperstein (stumbling stone) commemorates the stay of Olga Loeb at this address.^[9]