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Zacharias Frank

Zacharias Frank was Otto Frank's grandfather.

Person

Vervaardiger onbekend. Fotocollectie Anne Frank Stichting, Amsterdam
  • Zacharias Frank
  • Born on: April 19, 1811
  • Born in: Niederhochstadt, Duitsland
  • Died on: July 27, 1891
  • Died in: Landau, Duitsland

Zacharias Frank, rond 1850

Vervaardiger onbekend. Fotocollectie Anne Frank Stichting, Amsterdam

Rechthebbende(n) onbekend

Zacharias Frank, Anne Frank's great-grandfather, was born in 1811 in Niederhöchstadt, about six miles from the fortress and garrison town of Landau in Rhineland-Palatinate, at today's Oberkehrgasse 10. The family had not resided long in the Southern Palatinate, the border region between Germany and France. Zacharias' parents originated from Fürth in Bavaria. Father Abraham was a house teacher and rabbi of the Jewish community in Niederhochstadt.[1] He, like many of his fellow believers, had left his hometown of Fürth to seek his fortune elsewhere. Because the Palatinate and Landau were French territory at the time, Zacharias received French citizenship at birth,[2] which he lost again when the Palatinate was awarded to Bavaria by the Congress of Vienna[3] and in 1831 finally came to be ruled by the German Confederation.[4]

Many Jews from the area moved to Landau to work there as merchants. As did Zacharias. Initially he ran a simple inn in Niederhochstadt,[5] but in 1841 the nearly 30-year-old Zacharias left his parental village and moved to Landau, having obtained a license to open an ironmonger's shop.[6] The previous year he had married Babette, also known as Barbara, Hammelfett, born in 1814. She was from Fürth, the same place where Zacharias' father came from. Her derogatory surname was the result of an antisemtic entry in the civil registry in Bavaria: Babette's real name was Hammelburg, but the registrar in Fürth changed it to the hateful Hammelfett ("sheep fat").[7] 

Business went well for Zacharias Frank. He became a banker, dedicated himself to lending money and would come to call himself Hirsch Frank.[8] He bought extensive vineyards in nearby Albersweiler and became the owner of the former post stop and tavern Zur Blum.[9]

Between 1842 en 1855, eleven children were born: Rebecca (1842-1928), Jacob (1843-1878), Rosalia (Rosa; 1844-1929), Sophie (1846-1927), Emil (1847-1906), Veronica (1849), who died in infancy, Arnold (1850-1872), Michael (1851-1909), Leon (1853-1915), Carolina (Lina; 1854-1930) and Caroline (1855-1929).[10] 

When Zacharias Frank acquired the Zur Blum property at the Kaufhausgasse in Landau in 1870, he was 59 years old and most of his children had already moved out. Just two of them - Sophie, married to banker Leo Loeb, and Arnold a beer brewer - remained in their native town. The others all left the Palatinate and moved to Frankfurt, Paris, Luxemburg and the United States.

Eldest daughter Rebecca married Oskar Loewi, who was twelve years older han her, and moved to the U.S. After Oskar's death she returned to Europe with her children.[11] Rebecca was followed to the U.S. by Rosalia, who married Ottmar Loewi, Oskar's younger brother.[12]

Jacob founded a banking business bearing the family name in Frankfurt. Leon left for Paris at the age of 26, where, together with his business partner Willy Wolfsohn, he founded the bank Frank, Wolfsohn & Co. He married his niece Nanette, Rebecca and Oskar Loewi's eldest daughter.[13] Leon, now called Léon, and Nanette were the parents of interior decorator Jean-Michel Frank. Caroline married Ferdinand Em(m)anuel, a wealthy businessman from Frankfurt am Main,[14] the same city where Michael Frank, Otto Frank's father, would also settle in 1872 and build up a banking house.

Rosalia would eventually return to Frankfurt as well. Emil became a beer brewer in Mühlburg near Karlsruhe and married Auguste Haber.[15] Daughter Carolina (Lina) married Albert Reinhard, an entrepreneur in the leather industry in Luxembourg.[16] 

Their parents remained behind in Landau. Zacharias died in 1884, his wife in 1891. After the death of Babette Frank, all surviving children became owners of the family home Zur Blum, but in 1901 it became the exclusive property of Sophie Loeb-Frank, widow of Leo Loeb, who had died that same year. Their son Ernst died in 1903, and after mother Sophie's death in 1927, daughter Olga Loeb (1876-1946) inherited the property. To escape Nazi persecution, she fled to Luxembourg in 1939, where she found refuge with relatives, possibly with the children of her aunt Carolina. Nevertheless, she was incarcerated at Cinqfontaines (Pafemillen or Fünfbrunnen) monastery in 1941[17] and from there deported to Theresienstadt on 6 April 1943. She survived and returned to Luxembourg, where she died on 16 September 1946.[18]

Source personal data.[10]

Footnotes

  1. ^ Stadt Landau in der Pfalz, Anne Frank und ihre südpfälzische Verwandtschaft (von Stadtarchivarin Christine Kohl-Langer), 12 June 2019.
  2. ^ Maarten van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel: opkomst en ondergang van Jean-Michel Frank (1895-1941), Amsterdam: Lemniscaat, 2013, p. 36.
  3. ^ Het Congres van Wenen was een congres waar na de val van Napoleon de nieuwe Europese grenzen werden bepaald.
  4. ^ Wikipedia: Landau.
  5. ^ Bernhard Kukatzki, Der jüdische Friedhof in (Nieder-)Hochstadt, Landau in der Pfalz; [s.n.], 1995, p. 5.
  6. ^ Mirjam Pressler, 'Groeten en liefs aan allen': het verhaal van de familie van Anne Frank, Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2010, p. 27. The Landau city archivist lists 1840 as the year Zacharias settled in Landau. Stadt Landau in der Pfalz, Anne Frank und ihre südpfälzische Verwandtschaft, 12 June 2019.
  7. ^ Aldus Carol Ann Lee, Het verborgen leven van Otto Frank, Amsterdam: Balans, 2002, p. 22.
  8. ^ Edith Vierling, Das Frank-Loeb'sche Haus zu Landau in der Pfalz, München: GRIN, 2009, p. 10.
  9. ^ Lee, Het verborgen leven van Otto Frank, p. 22-23; Pressler, 'Groeten en liefs aan allen', p. 27.
  10. a, b Both Melissa Müller and Mirjam Pressler present family trees of the Frank family, but both are incomplete and sometimes give inaccurate information. Melissa Müller, Anne Frank: de biografie, 5e, geh. herz. druk, Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2013, p. 468; Pressler, 'Groeten en liefs aan allen', p. 418-419. For a brief, clear account of the Frank family tree, see: Van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel, p. 305-313. Van Buuren also discusses the variance of the given names, which were sometimes spelled in the German way, and sometimes the French way.
  11. ^ Van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel, p. 308.
  12. ^ Van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel, p. 308.
  13. ^ Van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel, p. 307.
  14. ^ Carol AnneLee, Anne Frank 1929-1945: het leven van een jong meisje: de definitieve biografie, Amsterdam: Balans, 2009, p. 38. She also mentions Rosalia, but that is incorrect.
  15. ^ Find a Grave, database en afbeeldingen, gedenkplekpagina voor Emil Frank (21 Jan 1847–31 Mei 1906), Find a Grave-gedenkplek-ID 128399751.
  16. ^ Wikipedia: Händschefabréck Reinhard am Stadgronn. Curiously, when Leon Frank applied for French citizenship in 1914, he was also required to list how many family members should be counted as his dependants. In addition to two of his sons, he also kisted four aunts: Mme Loewi (Rosa), Mme Loeb (Sophie), Mme Reinhard (Lina) and Mme Emmanuel (Caroline). Van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel, p. 38-39.
  17. ^ In 1941, the convent of Cinqfontaines was used to temporarily incarcerate Luxembourg Jews. From there they were gradually deported in smaller groups to the ghettos and later directly to the camps; Wikipedia: Pafemillen.
  18. ^ Olga Loeb was an enthusiastic amateur painter, and in 2022 a painting she created, “Still Life with Poppies and Daisies,” turned up at a flea market in Landau. Stadt Landau in der Pfalz, Besonderes Fundstück aus Landaus jüdischer Geschichte: Ruhango-Markt schenkt Stadt Stillleben von Olga Loeb für Rückkehr ins Frank-Loebsche Haus, 27 May 2022; Kleiner Schatz jüdischer Geschichte taucht im Flohmarkt auf, Die Rheinpfalz, 3 June 2022.