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Helene Frank * 1907

Markusstraße (Durchgang zur Neanderstraße, vor Sportplatz; früher Peterstraße 10) (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
HELENE FRANK
JG. 1907
DEPORTIERT 1941
ERMORDET IN
MINSK

further stumbling stones in Markusstraße (Durchgang zur Neanderstraße, vor Sportplatz; früher Peterstraße 10):
Julie Frank

Gertrud Frank, born 10/13/1902 in Hamburg, deported to Minsk on 11/18/1941
Helene Frank, born 7/12/1907 in Hamburg, deported to Minsk on 11/18/1941
Julie Frank, née Weinberg, born 1/28/1874 in Freren, deported to Minsk on 11/18/1941

Markusstrasse, corner of Peterstrasse 15 (Peterstrasse 63)

There are eight Stumbling Stones at the corner of Markus- and Peterstrasse, three of them with the family name Frank. Julie Frank and her daughters Gertrud and Helene Frank lived at Peterstrasse 63, in the passage to the street called Hütten. This part of Peterstrasse was completely destroyed during the Allied air raids on Hamburg ("Operation Gomorrha”) and not rebuilt after the war.

Julie Frank was born in January 28, 1874 in Freren, county Lingen a.d. Ems, as the daughter of the butcher Meyer Weinberg and his wife Bertha, née de Vries, a Jewish couple. Possibly, she attended the school in Gertrudenweg built in 1878 by the Jewish Community. However, Jewish children in Freren also attended the Lutheran citizens’ school in Lingen. Her younger sister Lina, born March 1, 1878, one of six siblings, attended the elementary school in nearby Leer. She was possible the first member of the family to come to Hamburg, where she took a job as a cook in 1893. On August 7, 1906, Lina Weinberg married the journeyman tailor Heinrich Weller (born 5/7/1880, died 2/25/1938, who was not Jewish. The couple lived at Bornstrasse 6 in the Grindel quarter.

Before her marriage on September 9, 1895, Julie Frank worked as a housemaid. Her husband Isidor Frank, called Sally, had been born on in Homberg, Hesse on October 9, 1869 as the son of the Butcher Kalmann Frank and his wife Karoline, née Kahn.
Julie and Isidor Frank lived at Peterstrasse 63 for decades; between 1895 and 1909, they had six children. Even though Sally Frank was a trained butcher, he worked as a messenger at the Rudolf Karstadt AG, where he later moved to an office job.

He Franks’ three sons Kalmann Max, born November 6, 1895, Arthur Joseph, born December 28, 1897, and Herbert, born January 21, 1899, attended the Talmud Tora School in Grindelhof; the girls Gertrud, born October 13, 1902, Helene, born July 12, 1907 and Edith, the youngest, born December 30, 1909, attended the Israelitic school for girls in Carolinenstrasse. Of Helene and Gertrud it is only known that they attended the Caroli commercial school after elementary school. The brothers served in the army in World War I. Max, the eldest, did not return; he was killed near Korytnika, Poland on September 27, 1916, aged 21.

Julie Frank was widowed on November 12, 1932 – her husband Sally died of adenocarcinoma at the age of 63.

She went on living together with her unmarried daughters at Peterstrasse 63 until July 1939. The Franks moved to a two-room apartment on the third floor of Durchschnitt 8 in the Grindel quarter after Helene had been fired because she was Jewish in March, and Gertrud suffered the same fate shortly after. For several years, Helene had run one of the 41 branches of the Karstadt & Porges company, dry cleaners and dye works. Gertrud lost her job at the office of Seligmann & Frank, wholesalers of linen at Deichstrasse 9.

Possibly, Julie Frank could no longer afford the rent in Peterstrasse on her own – her monthly pension was only 49.20 reichsmarks. It might also be that their rent contract was cancelled at the end of April, after rent control for Jews was abolished. The building at Durchschnitt 8 later became one of the "Jews’ houses” where Jews were accumulated to prepare for the planned deportations.

Helene now ran the family household, Gertrud found a job as a housemaid, and her brother Herbert temporarily moved in with them again – he now only had occasional temporary jobs as a messenger at the paper shop of Gustav Marcus (cf. there) in Peterstrasse 72. Before, Herbert had lived near his place of work at the boarding house of Louise Simon (cf. there) at Peterstrasse 33b.

After his commercial apprenticeship at a wholesale company, he first worked as a bookkeeper and dispatcher. In 1918, he joined the Social Democratic Party. It is not documented if he remained politically active after 1933. On August 2, 1940, Herbert Frank married Frieda Laura Schmits, born in Rotterdam, The Netherlands on December 27, 1911.

Shortly after their marriage, the couple moved to the Nanny-Jonas-Stift at Agathenstrasse 3 in Eimsbüttel, also a "Jews’ house.” The childless couple was assigned to "work duty”, Frieda in a factory, Herbert, for two years, as an excavator. On November 8, 1941, they were both deported to the ghetto of Minsk in White Russia. Stumbling Stones at Agathenstrasse 3 commemorate them (cf. Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel und Hamburg-Hoheluft-West).

Only ten days later, Julie Frank, suffering from severe diabetes, and her daughters Helene and Gertrud were assigned to the second transport for Minsk on November 18, 1941. Also their fate in Minsk is also unknown. No member of the family survived deportation. Deportation.

Edith, the youngest daughter, married Kay, managed to emigrate to England: later, she lived in Sydney, Australia.

Her brother Arthur had already left Hamburg in 1926 for professional reasons and lived in Barchfeld on the Werra River with his wife Ilse Johanna, née Spangenberg (born March 25, 1898 in Harburg). In Barchfeld, he was factory manager and travelling director of the bicycle manufacturer Pallas Werke Reum & Boenner-Sachs for twelve years until he was fired because he was "non-Aryan”.
(After the war, on 25 March 1947, Arthur Frank sent a letter to his former employer: "[…] I gladly think back to all the years when we worked together & I will never forget that you resisted against my dismissal the Nazis demanded until in 1937 the pressure got so strong that my dismissal could not be prevented.")

Having been forced to give up their home in September 1937, they returned to Hamburg, where they found a dwelling at Bremer Reihe 20 in the St. Georg quarter. Under pressure by the persecution that Arthur Frank later described, they immigrated to Bombay, India (now Mumbai) in Oktober 1938. At the outbreak of the war, they were interned as alien enemies [of the British Empire] until 1942 (with an interruption). They returned to Hamburg in 1964 and settled in the Flottbek quarter.

Julie Frank’s sister Lina Weller was deported to Riga from the "Jews’ house” at Kleiner Schäferkamp 32 on December 6, 1941. Eva Glücks, née Weinberg (born 3/29/1884, died 3/2/1959) was married and lived in Mülheim on the Ruhr. A further brother’s name was Josef Weinberg. Nothing more is known of him.

Translated by Peter Hubschmid
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: May 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 4; 9; StaH 351-11 AfW 2514 (Frank, Julie); StaH 351-11 AfW 32075 (Frank, Helene); StaH 351-11 AfW 22445 (Frank, Herbert); StaH 351-11 AfW 26096 (Frank, Gertrud); StaH 351-11 AfW 18096 (Frank, Arthur Joseph); StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2849 u 898/1895; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2427 u 52/1897; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 13169 u 342/1899; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 3066 u 549/1906; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 767 u 407/1917; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 993 u 433/1932; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8152 u 104/1938; StaH 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge 1172 (Frank, Herbert); StaH 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge 1985 (Weller, Lina); StaH 552-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 2; StaH 552-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 3; http://www.steinheim-institut.de/daten/mlh_all.html (Zugriff 8.3.2015); SPD Landesorganisation Hamburg (Hrsg.): Freiheit, S. 225; Schreiben von Arthur Frank an Rudolf Börner-Sachs, LATh-StA MGN, Bezirkstag/Rat des Bezirkes Suhl, H 123.
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