Deggendorf displaced persons camp scrip, 10-cent note, acquired by a former German Jewish prisoner

Henry Frank (1918-2002) was born Heinz Frankenstein in Berlin, Germany to Jakob (1888-1942) and Anna (nee Zydower, 1891-1944) Frankenstein. Heinz had four sisters: Dorothea (later Jastrow, 1914-1977), Irene (later Gratz, 1915-1944), Gerda (later Anschel, 1916-1942), and Inge (1925-1997). Jakob was injured fighting for Germany in World War I. He earned the Iron Cross for his service, but illness combined with his injuries made it difficult for him to work afterwards. As a result, the family was poor, and Anna had to work cleaning graves in a Jewish cemetery. As a child, Heinz was artistic and played the accordion and violin. The family was not very religious, but celebrated the major Jewish holidays. They lived in a mixed-religion neighborhood, and had many Gentile friends. Heinz always identified more strongly as German than Jewish, and never experienced antisemitism until 1933.

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. Anti-Jewish decrees were passed that restricted every aspect of Jewish life. Heinz was forced to leave his public school, and he and his sisters began working to help support the family. He worked carrying coal in his neighborhood and later in a war supplies factory. In September 1939, in accordance with the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact, Germany and Russia invaded Poland. In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany. Heinz’s sister, Dorothea, her husband, and two children had fled for England earlier that summer, but the rest of the family were unable to leave Berlin. In April 1942, Gerda and her family were deported to the Warsaw Ghetto, and then to the Baltic region, where they were killed. Following the assassination attempt on General Reinhard Heydrich in Prague on May 27, 1942, Jakob was among 50 Jewish men who were rounded up in Berlin by the Gestapo. Jakob and the other men were transported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, lined up against a brick wall, and shot. Within the week, unaware of their father’s fate, Heinz, Inge, Irene, and Anna were deported to Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp in German-occupied Czechoslovakia. Heinz was assigned to work as a men’s nurse in the ghetto hospital, and helped take care of patients’ daily needs. He was later transferred to work at a mental institution.

In 1944, Heinz was among a group of young men deported to Wulkow near Berlin to build barracks for the Gestapo. They were beaten by the SS and promised that their good behavior would save their relatives in Theresienstadt from transport to the East. Irene had gotten sick and was deported to Auschwitz in October 1944. Anna volunteered to go along with her. A few days later, Inge was given permission to follow her mother, but by the time she arrived, Anna and Irene had been killed in the gas chambers. On October 27, Inge was deported to Oederan, a subcamp of Flossenbürg, where she was a forced laborer in a munitions factory. After a year in Wulkow, Heinz returned to Theresienstadt to find that his mother and sisters were gone.

After four weeks in Theresienstadt, Heinz was deported to a camp near the town of Hof in Germany, where he renovated housing. After a month, Heinz and a group of nearly 200 prisoners were force-marched six days and nights back to Theresienstadt. Many people died on the march, but the group arrived on April 20, 1945. There, Heinz reunited with his sister, Inge—whose shaved head and dirty appearance made her unrecognizable—the following day. She was transported there following the evacuation of Oederan on April 14. Theresienstadt was liberated by the Soviet army on May 9, but a Typhus epidemic prevented Heinz and Inge from leaving immediately after liberation. Once he could leave, Heinz traveled to Berlin to find his mother, unaware she had died in Auschwitz. He returned to his sister in Theresienstadt, and they were picked up by the American army and taken to Deggendorf displaced persons (DP) camp. On the way, the trucks were involved in an accident, leaving Heinz with broken ribs and a short hospital stay.

Heinz and Inge arrived at Deggendorf in June 1945, and stayed there until June 1946, when he immigrated to the United States. After arriving in New York City, the American Joint Distribution Committee put the refugees up in the Hotel Marseilles, and Heinz changed his name to Henry Frank. He could not speak English at first, but got a job working as a machinist at a factory in White Plains, a short distance from the city. He later got a job working in wholesale meat distribution. While living in New York, Henry belonged to a social circle with other Holocaust survivors. Every couple of weeks they would go to the piers to meet the arriving ships, and every Sunday they would go to Coney Island. Among this circle was Irene Silberstein (b. 1927), who he had met briefly while in Deggendorf. Henry and Irene married in April 1948, went on to have two children, and moved to New Jersey. They regularly visited local schools and gave talks about their experiences during the Holocaust.

Inge remained in Deggendorf until September 1946, when she immigrated to England. She then joined her sister, Dorothea, who lived on a small farm in Scotland with her husband and children. Inge immigrated to the United States in November 1949. Later, Dorothea and her family also came to the United States.