Julius Holländer

Julius Holländer was the eldest son of Abraham Holländer and Rosa Holländer-Stern and a brother of Edith Frank-Holländer.^[1]

All children from Abraham Holländer's family first went to the Jüdische Volksschule in Aachen.^[2] After completing his education at the Aachen gymnasium, Julius followed a private financial-economic study with a professor at the Technical University, in preparation for a position in his father's company.^[3]

During the First World War Julius served as a volunteer in the Infantry Regiment No. 25.^[4] After a shot in the elbow, he would suffer from a stiff arm for the rest of his life.^[3] He was awarded the Iron Cross in December 1915.^[5] Julius was a member of the Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten (RjF), founded in 1919. This was an organization of Jewish war veterans, with the goal of combating anti-Semitism in Germany. In doing so, they emphasized that approximately 85,000 German Jews had fought in the First World War, and that approximately 12,000 of them had died.^[6] On 15 November 1932, the founding meeting of a local branch of the RjF took place in Aachen. Julius Holländer was elected chairman by the more than 250 attendees.^[7] A month later, an appeal appeared in the Gemeindeblatt der Synagogegemeinde zu Aachen und Umgebung, in which it was stated that as veterans they stood for ''to tell the truth honestly and openly and to defend and demand the homeland rights of German Jews without restriction'.^[8] In his capacity as chairman of the local branch, Julius was one of the speakers at a Hanukkah celebration of the RjF's sports league on 18 December 1933.^[9]

Julius was also active as a (board) member of various Jewish organizations and sports clubs. He was chairman of Turnclub 1906 and deputy chairman of soccer club Alemania Aachen football club.^[10] After the death of father Abraham in 1927, he was elected to the members' council of the Jewish community,^[11] where he was re-elected in 1934.^[12] He was also a member of the Israelite men's club Chebrath Gemilluth Chassadim. ^[13]

Julius mostly spent time with his brother Walter, who was three years younger. After the death of their father, they jointly managed the family firm B. Holländer. Both brothers were unmarried and lived at home with their parents. When their mother sold the family home on Liebfrauenstrasse in Aachen in 1933, she moved to Monheimsallee together with Julius and Walter. Later, in 1935, they also moved with their mother to Pastorplatz. They loved children, often visited the Frank family in Frankfurt and took Margot and Anne in the car to Aachen.^[14] After the Frank family emigrated to Amsterdam, Julius and Walter drove Margot from Aachen to Amsterdam, while Anne continued to live with grandmother Rosa Holländer-Stern for a while.^[15]

After the Nazis took power in 1933, Julius and Walter tried to keep the family firm going in an uncertain political and economic climate, but after the November Pogrom of 1938, this was no longer possible. Both were arrested after Kristallnacht.^[16] Walter was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp,^[17] but the fact that Julius had been injured in World War I saved him from the same fate.^[18] Due to the Verordnung über den Einsatz des jüdischen Vermögens of 3 December 1938, the Holländers were forced to cease their business activities. On 16 January 1939, the B. Hollander company was liquidated;^[3] the property was 'Aryanized'.^[19]

Thanks to his cousin Ernst, who already lived in the United States for some time and signed an affidavit for him, Julius managed to obtain permission to emigrate to the United States. Due to the unsafe situation in Germany, Otto Frank took him into his home in Amsterdam while he was waiting for his definitive visa.^[20] On 25 March 1939 he left on the SS Veendam for the USA.^[21] He travelled on a visa that was issued on 24 February in Stuttgart.^[22]

Once in the US, Julius settled in Massachusetts, where he had no choice but to accept unskilled work as an oven man on the night shift of the Canton Japanning Company, a company that produced patent leather. Keeping the ovens burning was not only unhealthy, but also poorly paid: he earned a meager wage of US$28 per week.^[23] 

Julius and Walter Holländer were granted US citizenship on 13 November 1944.^[24] Even after the end of the war, they had to make ends meet as low-paid factory workers, living in extremely modest conditions in furnished rooms near Boston.^[25] When they received the news that their sister Edith and her two children Margot and Anne Frank had died in the German concentration camps, they were inconsolable. They found it difficult to come to terms with the fact that their immediate family had been murdered: "Our lives are empty now. Edith and the girls was all we had", Julius wrote to Otto Frank in the summer of 1945.^[26]

With his brother Walter, he transferred one hundred dollars in 1963 to support the work of the Anne Frank House.^[27] That same year the brothers moved to New York, where they lived more or less like hermits. Small consolation was that in 1956 he and Walter each received a monthly allowance of DM 600 as compensation to victims of Nazi persecution.^[28]

His physical health also had gotten worse: Julius suffered from rheumatism, from stomach and intestinal complaints, and he had to undergo surgery on his right eye due to cataracts.^[3]

Julius died in an accident in New York on 4 October 1967, falling into an elevator shaft. Walter placed an obituary in the emigrant magazine Aufbau nine days later.^[29]

Source personal data.^[30] Addresses: Pastorplatz 1, Aachen;^[31] 138 High Street, Canton, Massachussets, USA;^[32] 24 Oak Avenue, Leominster, Massachussets, USA (1954).^[33]