EN

Pomosin Werke

Subject

Frankfurt am Main was a centre for the soya processing industry in the early 1920s. Here there were three companies involved in soy milk production, and one of them was Pomosin.[1] This company was located at Schmickstraße 45 in the city's Osthafen.[2] Pomosin was owned by the Jewish Scheinberger family and made soy products as well as pectin and bakery ingredients, among other things.[3] Chemist Robert Feix, nephew of the family and attached to the company, also wanted to open the domestic market for pectin and in 1928 started trading the gelling agent Opekta, which he developed. Pomosin was the producer of this Opekta pectin.[4] In the Netherlands, Pomosin was represented from 1928 by Frans van Angeren and Joop Hofhuis.[5] Otto Frank took over the Dutch household market with his Opekta Mij. in 1933. He undertook to source all pectin from Pomosin and pay a percentage for the licence.

Feix and his aunt Emmy Scheinberger were stripped of the management of the Pomosin group during the Nazi era. Walter Fischer was appointed in their place. In previous years, there had already been many struggles for control and assets within the family.[6]

Two members of the Pomosin management, Joachim Rieke and Heinrich Sauerbrey, visited the Amsterdam Opekta office in spring 1943. Kugler conducted the meeting because Kleiman was absent due to illness. One floor up, Otto Frank - in hiding - listened in. Three weeks later, on Saturday 24 April 1943, these Pomosin representatives came to the office again for a meeting.[7]

Footnotes

  1. ^ Joachim Drews, Die "Nazi-Bohne". Anbau, Verwendung und Auswirkung der Sojabohne im Deutschen Reich und Südosteuropa (1933-1945), Münster: Lit Verlag, 2004, p. 41 (noot 74).
  2. ^ Institut für Stadtgeschichte, Frankfurt am Main, Adressbuch 1924 (microfiches).
  3. ^ Anne Frank Stiching (AFS), afd. Collecties, interview Frans Hofhuis door Teresien da Silva, Amsterdam, 17 november 2011.
  4. ^ Rudolf Ripa, Die Pektinstoffe. Einführung mit besonderem Hinblick auf die Obstkonserven-Industrie, Braunschweig: Dr. Serger & Hempel, 1937, p. 171.
  5. ^ Het Utrechts Archief, Utrecht, Handelsregister Kamer van Koophandel Utrecht, Kamer van Koophandel en Fabrieken, toegang 4004, inv. nrs. 09, dossier 8857 en 13, dossier 12095.
  6. ^ National Archives and Records Administration, Washington DC, USA, External Assets Investigation OMGUS, toegang M1922, dossier Pomosin Werke GmbH, Fisher KG, p. 37-43.
  7. ^ Anne Frank, Diary Version B, 1 and 27 April 1943, in: The Collected Works, transl. from the Dutch by Susan Massotty, London [etc.]: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2019.