Niemals Vergessen

Today was by far the best day of the program. Hands down. No contest. Today I was honored to meet Thomas Frankl, a Jew born in 1934 in Bratislava. His father, Adolf Frankl, survived his arrest and internment and finally the Death March from Auschwitz. Thomas, his sister and mother went into hiding and survived Hitler’s Final Solution as well. The family was re-united after WWII and to Vienna to escape communism. Adolf Frankl began sketching and painting his Visions from the Inferno.

I will never forget this day. I first heard of Adolf Frankl from a Jewish walking tour I took around the city. There was a sign on his door that said the studio was closed for vacation. I took note of the return date. I went back to the shop where I met a volunteer named George who told me that Thomas, the artist’s son gives guided tours and usually hangs out around the shop in the afternoons or I could send an email and arrange for a guided tour. I sent an email, Thomas replied with a phone number. We arranged a time for the tour that usually takes 45 minutes to an hour. August 27 around 1 pm Professor Stuart, Richard and I went to his studio for the tour.

He spent over three hours with us telling his story and his father’s story.

Their story begins in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Thomas Frankl begins his story by telling us about his Father, Adolf Frankl. He brings out a prisoner’s hat and tells us how “one of those un-humans” would treat the prisoners. At roll call the prisoner would hold their hat at their right side. An SS officer would at times take the hat and throw it over to the electrified fence and order the prisoner to retrieve it. When the prisoner obeyed the orders the sniper in the tower would shoot the convict attempting an ‘escape.’ After telling this story he Thomas ponders the situation. The sniper may have really thought it was an escape attempt or the prisoner could have just been caught in the middle of a sick game. Thomas Frankl says, “alles ist möglich” (everything is possible).

Then Thomas tells us about the Judenstern, the yellow Jewish star. His mother was arrested and sent to a labor camp for hiding the star by holding her purse across her chest while on the streets, covering the piece of yellow fabric. She escaped the labor camp, aided by a woman in the camp.

Thomas has the same purse that his mother carried. Inside of it is her handkerchief. Thomas pulls it out and puts it in his shirt pocket saying, “So I can always feel her with me.” Inside her purse is also a candle that they would carry into the shelters during air raids. As a Jew with no access to shelters he said, “some people helped but not too many.” In the next breath he explains, “we never generalize” and that is why he lives in Austria. Unlike Ruth Kluger who remembers Vienna as the “city [that] hated Jewish children,” Thomas remembers Vienna as a haven from communism.

Thomas Frankl goes on with his story. On the day after Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement, a holy day), September 28, 1944, the Nazis arrested his family. This shows Nazi’s organization and planning: arresting families when all were together for holiday at night when all would be at home. Thomas explains that the law was to write on the door the family members name and religion. His mother wrote Roman Catholic instead of Jew and the family was not arrested at this time. However, a man whose son worked for Adolf Frankl noticed the Frankl family was not arrested and tells the police a Jewish family was missing. The family was then arrested.

Thomas pauses to tell a story that describes his father’s character. After the war and after his father’s death march, internment and arrest the same man who assured the arrest of the Frankl family met Adolf alive again. His father forgave the man and employed him again. Thomas tells this story through tears as he remembers and loves his father.

He returns to the story of his family’s arrest. His family was taken to Eichmann’s assistant who questions his mother. She assures the man that they were not Jewish but had been brought to the station by mistake. They decided to send her and her children home (Thomas and his sister) but would only arrest Adolf, his father, who was undeniably Jewish. Thomas’ mother asks for an escort out of the station and two soldiers escorted her and her children out as an Aryan.

He explains to us that Eichmann was “the cleanup man.”
This is when Professor Stuart mentioned that I had voice recorder and Thomas agreed to let me record the rest of our time together. I will kick myself for a long time for missing the beginning of his story. He tells us more details of his hiding, his father’s story and then about his father’s art. For those interested you can listen here as soon as I figure out how to get it online.

To be continued…