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Leon Frank

Leon Frank was an uncle of Otto Frank and father of interior designer Jean-Michel Frank.

Person

  • Leon Frank
  • Landau, Duitsland May 27, 1853
  • Parijs, Frankrijk Nov. 11, 1915

Leon (Léon) Frank was a son Zacharias Frank en Babette Hammelfett. He was the second youngest son of a family made up of five girls and five boys, not counting a sister who died in infancy. His brothers were: Jacob (1843-1878), Emil (1847-1906), Arnold (1850-1872), and Michael (1851-1909). His sisters were: Rebecca (1842-1928), Rosalia (Rosa; 1844-1929), Sophie (1846-1927) and Caroline (1855-1929).[1]

Just like three of his brothers, Leon left his native town of Landau. In 1879, 26 years of age, he left for Paris, where he and Willy Wolfsohn, business partner and brother-in-law, opened a stock brokerage firm called Frank, Wolfsohn & Co. As so-called coulissiers they traded in foreign securities and currency at the Paris stock exchange.[2] From that time on, he called himself Léon. On 12 January 1882 he married his niece Nanette Loewi (1861-1928), the eldest daughter of Oskar Loewi and Rebecca Frank, Léons oldest sister.[3]They had three sons: Oscar (1883-1915), Georges-Ottmar (1887-1915) and Jean-Michel (1895-1941), all three first cousins of Otto Frank. Michael Frank, Otto's father, was an uncle of Nanette, therefore also a cousin of Otto.

Léons eldest son was a lawyer het Court of Appeal in Paris.[4] He was educated at the Lycée Condorcet, one of the oldest en most prestigious schools in Paris, followed up by university studies in both law and literature.[5] After getting his law degree, he was sworn in as a lawer on 23 October 1906. In 1910 he won the concours d'éloquence (oratory contest) of the Conférence des avocats du barreau de Paris and was secretary of this fraternity in the years 1910-1911.[6] In June 1913 he started his on law firm together with Armand Dorville and became secretary of the dean of the Bar Association.[7] Oscar Frank was a passionate lover of English literature, but his greatest love was for the music of Wagner and he regularly travelled to Bayreuth to attend the Bayreuther Festspiele. He himself played the violin and was friends with cellist Maurice Maréchal.[8]

When visiting the Frank family in Frankfurt in the summer of 1914, a few days after Austria had declared war on Serbia, Léon Frank expressed great concern about the hatred against Jews confronting him and his family in Paris. The Dreyfus affair had caused a surge of antisemitic sentiment in France, while at the same time a smear campaign was being waged against German Jews who traded in foreign currency.[9] Added to this was the looming threat of war. He had two sons of conscript age and feared that one cousin would have to fight against the other. He did not imagine this potential danger, because except for Jean-Michel, who was still a minor, every son of the Frank family would be fighting in World War I.[10] While Otto and his brothers fought for Germany, their cousins from Paris fought on the French side.

Following the start of de First World War, Oscar Frank was mobilized and placed in the 247th infantry regiment.[11] In November 1914 he obtained permission to visit his wife Suzanne and his recently born daughter Alice. He left soon after and by the end of June 1915 he joined the 28th regiment that since 9 May partook in the assault on Neuville-Saint-Vaast, situated on the road between Arras and Lens. On 6 July 1915 Oscar Frank was there in the company of four other service men. As of them left the bunker to get cigarettes, the other four, playing cards, where hit by an exploding grenade.[12] The days leading up to Oscar's death were meticulously recounted by his close friend, Maurice Maréchal, who kept a war diary.[13] Second lieutenant Oscar Frank was posthumously decorated with the Croix de Guerre avec palme and Légion d'Honneur on 18 October 1919.[14] His daugther Alice would live to be 101.[15]

Georges-Ottmar Frank had enrolled at Lycée Janson-de-Sailly, a school for children of members of Parisian high society, where they came to be immersed an atmosphere of fervent patriotism.[16] The school's motto was Pour la Patrie, par le livre et par l'épée (For the Fatherland, by the book and by the sword). Due to acute bronchitis Georges had been declared unfit for military service several, but enlisted voluntarily as a soldier in February 1915 and was placed in 160th infantry regiment.[17] He was killed in action three months later on 23 May 1915 near Neuville-Saint-Vaast.[18]

In November 1914 Léon Frank applied for French citizenship, but his request to be naturalized was denied. That he had lived in France for thirtyfive years and three sons who were Frenc citizens was of no avail. Being German nationals and, as such, subjects of a nation at war with France, both he and Nanette lost their civil rights and were place under house arrest.[19] To add insult to injury, his bank accounts were also seized and he was in danger of being deportated. The final straw was when his two oldest sons were been killed on the French front line within two weeks of each other in the summer of 1915. On 11 November 1915, Léon Frank committed suicide by jumping out of the window of his Paris apartment.[20] His wife Nanette sank into a depression and eventually died in 1928 after spending several years in a Swiss sanatorium..[21]

Youngest son Jean-Michel was left behind in the big appartment at Kléber avenue in Paris's 16th arrondissement. He had also begun his education at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly, obtained his baccalaureate in 1911, then enrolled in law school. Once these studies were completed, he began working as an interior decorator. He turned out to become a celebrated interior designer, a pioneer of the minimalist style in the 1930s, befriending just about all of the great surrealists of his day and age. Nelson A. Rockefeller hired Jean-Michel Frank to furnish his newly renovated apartment in New York City.[22] Shortly after completing this project, Jean-Michel Frank died of a barbiturate overdose in March 1941.[23]

Souce personal data.[24] Adresses: Rue Rossini 3, Parijs; [25] Avenue Kléber.[26]

Footnotes

  1. ^ For a brief, clear account aof the Frank familiy tree, see: Maarten van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel: opkomst en ondergang van Jean-Michel Frank (1895-1941), Amsterdam: Lemniscaat, 2013, 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.
  2. ^ Van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel, p. 27-33. In 19th-century France 'unofficial' (and sometimes illegal) exhanges emerged beyond official markets. The most important one was in Paris and was called the Coulisse. The Coulisse was run by private bankers, called coulissiers. Data for Financial History project: Paris OTC (Coulisse); Wikipedia: Coulissier.
  3. ^ Van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel, p. 307-308.
  4. ^ Van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel, p. 37.
  5. ^ Pierre-Emmanuel Martin-Vivier, Jean-Michel Frank: l'étrange luxe du rien, Paris: Norma Éditions, 2006, p. 20-21.
  6. ^ Barreau de Paris - Avocats morts pour la France: Frank, Oscar (1883-1915).
  7. ^ Martin-Vivier, Jean-Michel Frank, p. 20-21. Armand Dorville (1875-1941) was a French art collector and lawyer. Wikipedia: Armand Dorville.
  8. ^ Barreau de Paris - Avocats morts pour la France: Frank, Oscar (1883-1915). For Maurice Maréchal, see Wikipedia: Maurice Maréchal.
  9. ^ Van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel, p. 32-33, 41, 71-72, 235.
  10. ^ Milly Stanfield, Looking back at ninety, 1991 (unpublished manuscript), p. 14-15.
  11. ^ Mémoire des Hommes: Oscar Frank.
  12. ^ Van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel, p. 55-61.
  13. ^ Sur les pas d'Adolphe Orange 28e Régiment d'infanterie: Oscar Frank 1883-1915. Also see: Maurice Maréchal & Lucien Durosoir, Deux musiciens dans la Grande Guerre, Paris: Tallandier, 2005.
  14. ^ Martin-Vivier, Jean-Michel Frank, p. 30.
  15. ^ Deuils - Mme Jean Schulmann, Le Figaro, 31 maart 2015.
  16. ^ Van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel, p. 69-70.
  17. ^ Van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel, p. 47.
  18. ^ Mémoire des Hommes: Georges Ottmar Frank.
  19. ^ Van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel, p. 36-41.
  20. ^ Van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel, p. 61.
  21. ^ Martin-Vivier, Jean-Michel Frank, p. 59.
  22. ^ Van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel, p. 281-287.
  23. ^ Van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel, p. 293-295. Despite claims that Jean-Michel Frank died by jumping out the window of his Manhattan apartment, he actually died of a drug overdose.
  24. ^ Van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel, p. 313.
  25. ^ Van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel, p. 308.
  26. ^ Van Buuren, Een ruimte voor de ziel, p. 70.