Hans Frankenthal (15 July 1926 – 22 December 1999) was a German Jew who was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland in 1943. Having survived the Holocaust along with his brother Ernst, Frankenthal returned to his home in Germany where he experienced the common disbelief and denial of Nazi war crimes.
Frankenthal eventually wrote an autobiography in the 1990s entitled Verweigerte Rückkehr, which was published half a year before his death. The English edition was published in 2002 under the title The Unwelcome One: Returning Home from Auschwitz.
Childhood
Frankenthal was born into a family of prominent Jewish butchers and cattle dealers in Schmallenberg, Province of Westphalia. In the Frankenthal home the Jewish religion was strictly followed mainly due to the Orthodox Jewish traditions of Frankenthal's mother, Adele Frankenthal. In the village of Schmallenberg there was a strong Christian, mainly Roman Catholic, presence.
After Jewish businesses began to be boycotted following the Nazi Party's seizure of power in 1933, the Frankenthal family was no longer able to properly provide themselves with basic necessities. Due to attempts to get around the new laws through extensive contacts in the German community, the Frankenthal family received several visits from the SA to investigate their ongoing commercial activities. The contacts themselves were also running a great risk in that the names of so-called "Traitors to the People and State" were published in the Nazi newspaper Rote Erde ("Red Earth"). To avoid being seen, the farmers preferred to trade at night; however, after the curfew for Jews was enacted, this was no longer possible. At this point, several local Jews emigrated to the USA and Holland.
Frankenthal's father, Max Frankenthal, believed that the Nazis would not harass his family to a large extent because he was a decorated soldier in the First World War. All over the village Jewish homes were raided and vandalised. The Nazis dubbed the country-wide event "Kristallnacht". The women and children were released the same day, but the men remained in custody in a shelter for the homeless. The families of those still in custody were able to bring food to their loved ones until the inmates were transferred to the Gestapo jail in nearby Dortmund. The Jews remaining in Schmallenberg were then forced to sign over the title deeds of their property with the promise that it would bring their husbands and sons back. After spending three days and three nights in the train, the arrested Jews arrived in the Auschwitz concentration camp complex.
Internment
As the family arrived at the camp, Max Frankenthal told his two sons that he was sure that he would not survive the ordeal, The inmates were then sorted out according to skills. The brothers both claimed to be locksmiths, although they had only begun training at the workshop in Dortmund in preparation for possible emigration to Palestine. the brothers found out that although several houses were destroyed during the war, their parents' house was not among them. The house was, however, inhabited by some relatives who had already made their way from a ghetto back to Schmallenberg. They found that only 7 out of 51 Jewish locals had survived the war. It would be almost 20 years before Hans would testify at the first of the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials. He also spoke several times in favour of payment of compensation to the camp labourers. Towards the end of his life, he received a monthly pension of 93 Deutschmarks per month.
Ernst's daughter (Hans' niece) Ruth Frankenthal was a life-long campaigner against anti-Semitism and was Chairwoman of the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation for several years; she was awarded the German Order of Merit. She was raised in Münster.
Hans Frankenthal Prize
From 2011 onwards the Foundation Auschwitz Committee (Stiftung Auschwitz-Komitee) inaugurated the Hans Frankenthal Prize. This annual prize is awarded to groups, initiatives and institutions that accomplish educational work and awareness training according to the aims of the Auschwitz Committee for the remembrance of the Shoah and against neo-fascist activities.
Bibliography
- Frankenthal, Hans (1999). Verweigerte Rückkehr. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag (1999)
- Frankenthal, Hans (2002). The Unwelcome One. Returning Home from Auschwitz. In collaboration with Andreas Plake, Babette Quinkert, and Florian Schmaltz. Translated from German by John A. Broadwin. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press (2002)