EW 4 3372-3375

MASTER - INDEX (P-Scheme)

1. Index Number: P.III.e.No 44

2. Title of Document: EXPERIENCES OF A “MISCHLING” IN FRANKFURT/MAIN.

3. Date: 1939-1945

4. Number of Pages: 4

Language: English

5. Author: Mrs. Johanna Fraenkel

6. Recorded by: Peter Zadek, April 1955

7. Form and Contents:

Mrs. Fraenkel, a non-Jewish lady of part-Jewish extraction was married, first to a gentile, then to a Jewish husband. The latter was for a time in BUCHENWALD Concentration Camp, and emigrated to England before the outbreak of the war. Mrs. F. stayed at FRANKFURT, where she was compelled to wear the yellow star. As regards work, she was subject to the same regulations as Jews.

In 1942 she was about to be deported, but saved herself by starting divorce proceedings. After the war she remarried Mr. Fraenkel in LONDON.{See report P.II.d. No.45.}

The Experiences of Mrs, Fraenkel in FRANKFURT-am-MAIN, 1939 - 1945.

(Reported, 15th April, 1955. Report by Peter Zadek)

Mrs Fraenkel was 38 years of age in 1939. She was a gentile with some Jewish blood who had been married to a gentile. This marriage had been dissolved and, in April 1939, Mrs Fraenkel married Arnold Fraenkel, who had recently returned from Buchenwald Concentration Camp. Arnold Fraenkel managed to get to England before the outbreak of war, but Mrs Fraenkel was unable to get all the necessary papers.

At the outbreak of war Mrs Fraenkel was thus left in Frankfurt-am-Main, the (mainly) gentile wife of a Jew, living with her 19 year old gentile daughter from her previous marriage.

Mrs Fraenkel had been employed by Voigt u. Heffner, Aktiengesellschaft, Frankfurt-am-Main since 1928. She left the company's employ before her marriage in April, preferring to leave before being thrown out. On the occasion of her leaving, her colleagues gave her a present. This was accompanied by a list of the subscribers to the present, with their signatures. Several Nazi party members were amongst the signatories. After it had been presented, Mrs Fraenkel was visited by a representative of the employees and asked to return the list. However, she had it photocopied before returning it.

In 1940 Mrs Fraenkel obtained employment with Geb. Roever, Aktiengesellschaft. This gentile firm employed many Jews in separate and inferior departments to the gentile workers. They also received smaller remuneration. Mrs Fraenkel, as Mischling, was, at first, allowed to work together with the gentiles. However, there was an SA control. Mrs Fraenkel, who has presumably been denounced by one of her colleagues, was asked by an SA man how much she earned. An unpleasant scene ensued and Mrs Fraenkel was transferred to the sewing department with the full-Jews, where she earned considerably less.

When the regulation first came into existence, according to which Jews were forced to wear a yellow star, Mrs Fraenkel made an application through her lawyer to the Ministry of the Interior, in which she maintained that she did not have to wear a star, in spite of her re-marriage. She based this on a clause in the regulation which stated that Jews married to gentiles, whose children had a Christian up-bringing, need not wear the star, even if the marriage had been dissolved.

There was a time-lapse of three months while her applicatiogestagestn was being considered. Meanwhile Mrs Fraenkel did not wear the star and therefore did not suffer the resulting loss of privilege (smaller rations etc). After three months, Mrs Fraenkel was summoned to the Gestapo H.Q. in Lindenstrasse. Here, after a two hour wait, during which a Gestapo official accosted and insulted her in the corridor, Mrs Fraenkel was interviewed by a Gestapo official, Schmidt who seemed to have more humanity than most of his colleagues. However, he told her that he had received orders from the Ministry of the Interior that she had, in future, to wear the star. During the interview, the Gestapo Commissar entered, shouted at her and told her she would be sent to prison and deported. Mrs Fraenkel answered very quietly and the Commissar left without taking any further action. Meanwhile, at another table in the same room, another Mischling was being interviewed. Her children had had a Jewish education. Suddenly the doors were flung open and a Gestapo officer yelled: Any more for prison? and the woman was dragged away.

Before allowing Mrs Fraenkel to leave, Schmidt asked her to send her father to his office, as he, too, now had to wear a star. Mrs Fraenkel asked whether anything would happen to him, and Schmidt assured her that he would be sent back. Mrs Fraenkel asked whether she could not simply give her father the message, and Schmidt finally agreed to her request.

Deportation in Frankfurt-am-Main

The first two transports, consisting only of full Jews, had left Frankfurt for Poland and Minsk on October and November 1941, respectively.

In May, 1942, Mrs Fraenkel was leaving her home when she met an officer from the Jewish Community of Frankfurt entering the house. As the Community had to compile the lists for the transports and had to break the news to the deportees, Mrs Fraenkel feared the worst. Indeed, she was on the list of the next transport. She went immediately to see the lawyer, who represented the Jewish Community and who happened to be a relative of Mrs Fraenkel. The lawyer suggested that the only way to escape deportation was to divorce her Jewish husband. Mrs Fraenkel's brother there upon went to Gestapo H.Q. where he was told that if divorce proceedings had been started by that same afternoon, Mrs Fraenkel would not be deported. The rest of the day was spent in running from office to office (Jews were, of course, not allowed to use public transport) until a document was obtained stating officially that proceedings had been begun. Mrs Fraenkel then took this to the Gestapo who, at first refused to accept it and asked why she had waited until the last moment to begin proceedings and why she had married

a Jew in the first place. Mrs Fraenkel answered that if they (the Gestapo) had any humanity (Menschliches Verstaendnis) at all, they would understand that she wanted to give her daughter a home and had married for her sake. This evidently had some effect on the Gestapo officers who passed Mrs Fraenkel's application not to be deported, not because of the divorce, but because we do have humanity.

The next morning, a Gestapo man came to collect her for the transport. She told him that she was not to go. The Gestapo man left to get in touch with H.Q., telling Mrs Fraenkel that if he did not return by 12 a.m., she would not be taken. He did not return, and so Mrs Fraenkel escaped almost certain death. For nothing was ever heard again from anyone who left on this transport. Amongst other of her acquaintances who were taken away on this transport was an Eduard Stern, the Jewish hairdresser, whose job it had been to cut the hair of the deportees at the collecting centre. With Stern were his wife and his 10 year-old daughter.

In August, 1942, Hermann Fraenkel, Mrs Fraenkel's father-in-law, was deported to Theresienstadt. He had previously been sent to the Jewish Old Age Home, Hermesweg. The home was kept in existence after the dissolution of all the others. To be sent to the Hermesweg home meant certain deportation. Hermann Fraenkel was 67 years old at the time.

In September, 1942, Arthur Obst, Mrs Fraenkel's uncle, was also sent to Theresienstadt. He was also 67 years old. He wrote from the camp, telling Mrs Fraenkel in veiled terms that Hermann Fraenkel was dead.

At this time the Jewish Community asked Mischlinge to help in feeding and caring for the deportees at the collecting centre. Mrs Fraenkel volunteered and continued to do this until the last transport in 1945. The deportees slept for one night at the centre. In the morning there was a luggage check, when Gestapo officers stole what they happened to fancy from the luggage. Next, by lorry to the station, where they were herded into the train like cattle. Finally, before the departure, minor Gestapo officials walked through the trains and stole such things as fountain-pens, cigarette lighters, hats.

Summary.

In all, Mrs Fraenkel was remarkably untouched throughout this period. She suffered the deprivations expected in war-time, accentuated by her yellow star. Her main recollection is of constant nervous strain, of constant fear for her friends and relatives; of stories of terror and brutality, of constant attempts to humiliate

her and her Jewish friends and relatives. But apart from petty persecutions at work and verbal insults from Nazis, Mrs Fraenkel never once witnessed actual physical brutality, in spite of the fact that after 1942 she spent a great deal of time with the deportees and their Gestapo guards.

After the war she joined her divorced husband in London where they re-married again.