Milly Stanfield

Milly Stanfield,^[1] born Milly Steinfeld, was a daughter of Ernestine Anna Pollak (1870-1960) and Emil Ludwig Steinfeld (1862-1928). Emil was was a son of Emanuel Steinfeld (1830-1874) and Carolina Helene Stern (1839-1903), an aunt of Otto's mother, Alice Frank-Stern. Milly's father was thus a cousin of Alice and Milly therefore a second cousin of Otto.^[2]

Hermann Pollak, Milly's maternal grandfather, was born in Brünn, today's Brno, in what was then Austrian Bohemia. At a young age, he and his family moved to Vienna. Because of involvement in the Vienna Uprising of October 1848, he fled Austria and eventually reached England via Paris. He settled in London, where he became the manager of the local office of an international shipping company. He married Emilie Dondorf, born in Frankfurt, and together they had four children, including Ernestine, Milly's mother.^[3]

Emanuel Steinfeld and Carolina (Lina) Helene Stern had two children, Paul Emanuel and Emil Ludwig, Milly's father. Emil moved to England at the age of 18 to seek his fortune, married Ernestine Pollak and had a daughter with her: Milly, born 20 July 1899.^[4]

In her memoir Looking back at ninety, Milly writes about her carefree and happy childhood, how she took piano lessons at an early age, but soon swapped the piano for the cello.^[5] She also reminisces about visits to and from relatives who lived on the European continent, such as the Frank family from Frankfurt an Main. One of her most vivid memories was of a young Otto Frank performing a gavotte on the cello.^[6]

On 29 July 1914, a day after Austria had declared war on Serbia, the Steinfeld family traveled from London to Frankfurt. When they were picked up from the train station by their relatives, who told them they were foolish to have come while Alsace was practically under siege. The relatives from Paris - Léon Frank, his wife Nanette and their three sons - also came to visit in Frankfurt. They were worried sick, convinced that all-out war was about to break out. They had two sons of military age and feared that cousin had to fight against cousin.^[7] Warned by the British Consulate, the Steinfelds quickly returned to London, home in time before England declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, and World War I erupted in full force.^[8]

In 1915, Milly commenced her studies at the Royal Academy of Music, graduating in July 1918. During the war, to prove their loyalty to their new homeland, the family decided to change their German-sounding surname Steinfeld to the English-sounding Stanfield.^[9]

In the 1920s and 1930s, Milly witnessed how the rise of the Nazis started to affect the lives of her relatives on the continent, causing some of them to move to England, Switzerland and the Netherlands.^[10] In early May 1937, Milly visited the Frank family in Amsterdam, but she was back in London in time for the coronation of King George VI on 12 May 1937.^[11]

There is a book of photographs in the collection of the Anne Frank House, containing family photos of British princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Windsor with their dogs.^[12] The book was presumably given or sent to the Frank family as a gift by Milly, along with two postcards of the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.^[13] Anne collected pictures and, while in hiding, stuck the two postcards on the wall in her room in the Secret Annex.

After the outbreak of World War II, Milly wrote to Otto, asking whether it might not be safer to send Margot and Anne to England and let them stay there until the war was over, but Otto replied that he and his wife could not bear to be separated from their children.^[14]  Milly would never see the girls and their mother again.

On his way from Auschwitz to Amsterdam, Otto Frank wrote to Milly from Katowice on 18 March 1945.^[15] They continued to correspond until his death. Afterwards Milly continued corresponding with Otto's widow Fritzi.

Milly not only played the cello, she also taught music as well, and contributed to Strad Magazine and other music journals. The articles she published layed the foundation for her book The intermediate cellist (1973).^[16] She also worked as secretary to the famous cellist Pablo Casals, co-wrote Maurice Eisenberg's Cello Playing of Today (1957) and co-founded The International Cello Centre in London. She moved to the U.S. in 1967 to be closer to her "adoptive family", Paula and Maurice Eisenberg and their children. In 1972 she obtained American citizenship.^[17]

Source personal data.^[17]