John Franklin memoir
Extent and Medium
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Creator(s)
- John Franklin
Biographical History
John Franklin (1930- ) was born Hans Frankenthal in Würzburg to Max Frankenthal (1886-1945) and Klara Frankenthal (nee Frankenthaler, 1899-1988). His family sought refuge in The Hague, Netherlands, in 1938 and relocated to 's-Hertogenbosch following the German invasion in 1940. He survived the Jewish ghetto in Amsterdam, was deported to Westerbork in 1943, and transferred to Bergen-Belsen later that year. He and his father were evacuated on the so-called "Lost Train" that was headed for Theresienstadt but ended up near the little German town of Tröbitz. His father died on the train. After the war, he was reunited with his mother (who had survived Auschwitz) and grandmother (who had survived in hiding). He and his mother immigrated to the United States in 1947, joined his mother’s relatives in San Francisco, and changed their name to Franklin.
Archival History
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Acquisition
Funding Note: The cataloging of this collection has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
John Franklin donated his memoir United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1995.
Scope and Content
John Franklin's thirteen page memoir, "A Family History," documents his Frankenthal and Frankenthaler relatives from Schwanfeld and Untereisenheim Germany, his family's move to Holland following Kristallnacht, their relocation to the Amsterdam ghetto, and deportation to Westerbork It relates his and his father's survival in Bergen-Belsen, his father's death aboard an evacuation train, his reunion with his mother and grandmother in the Netherlands, and his immigration to the United States. The memoir also documents his mother's survival in Auschwitz, his grandmother's rescue by the Van Hooff family in Boxtel, the deaths of two uncles and two cousins in Auschwitz, and the death of another uncle in Bergen-Belsen.
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Copyright Holder: John Franklin
Corporate Bodies
Subjects
- Jews--Germany--Würzburg.
- Amsterdam (Netherlands)
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- Boxtel (Netherlands)
- 's-Hertogenbosch (Netherlands)
- Jewish families--Germany--Schwanfeld.
- Würzburg (Germany)
- Concentration camp inmates--Germany.
- Jewish refugees--Netherlands.
- World War, 1939-1945--Jews--Rescue--Netherlands.
Genre
- Personal Narratives.
- Document