Stephani-Volksschule - Jüdisches Leben in Gunzenhausen

Compiled by Sven Seltmann und Reinhold Sternitzke
Free translation by Susanne Eisen

Builder:	Wilhelm Frank, Banker
Year built:	1890
Changes of ownership:	On April 1, 1908 the Bayerische Vereinsbank takes Possession.
	1914 the son Albert Frank, Bankdirector, takes over.
	Around 1930 it goes to his widow Selma, born Rosenfeld.
	Changes of 1937 the Bayerische Vereinsbank bought it.
	Until 1967 it was the Gunzenhausen branch of the Bayerische Vereinsbank.
	Today the building owned by “Mutterhaus Hensoltshöhe”.

The banker Wilhelm Frank, born 1852, son of teacher Hermann Frank and his wife Marianne born Brand, was the builder of the house Nuernberger Strasse 5.

Hermann and Marianne Frank moved to Gunzenhausen with their four children in about 1854/55, because Hermann became a teacher at the Jewish elementary school starting in 1855. All the children had been born in Demmelsdorf before that.

Ida	* June 12, 1849	in Demmelsdorf
Heinrich	* November 23, 1851	in Demmelsdorf
Wilhelm	* December 24, 1852	in Demmelsdorf
Gertrud	* August 31, 1854	in Demmelsdorf

Apparently the family remained in that town, because all four children got married there and started businesses there.

Wilhelm founded the “Wilhelm Frank CO” bank in 1880 in the existing building at Bahnhofstrasse 13.

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Gunzenhausen Wilhelm Frank

Around 1880 the bank relocated into Nuernberger Strasse 5, which Wilhelm Frank had built.

Photo of Nuernberger Strasse around 1910, second house from the left is the
”Bankhouse Frank”.

In 1881 Wilhelm married Dina Stern who was born on October 28, 1862 in Feuchtwangen.

Albert officially became a citizen of Gunzenhausen on October 16, 1908.As of 1908 he became the manager of the Gunzenhausen branch of the Bayerische Handelsbank, which his father had been before him. A few years later he was transferred to Munich to the bank’s stock exchange headquarters, where he became the manager within a short time.

The birthplace of daughter Julie would indicate that the familiy had moved to Munich before her 1919 birth date, because Albert Frank had been transferred there.

In 1937, forced by the political move to put all Jewish businesses into the hands of Aryans, she sold the bank house Nuernberger Strasse 5 to the Bayerische Vereinsbank. In 1939 she was still living in Munich with her daughters.

Both daughters, Johanna and Julie, emigrated to the USA together on December 15, 1940. We do not know what happened to their mother after that.

After the bank manager Albert Frank had moved away from Gunzenhausen Mr. Merk succeeded him. He lived on the third floor in the house. Mrs. Federschmidt, the familiy’s housekeeper, told us about the incidences that took place in the house across the street, from Nuernberger Strasse 4, on March 24, 1934. She was also able to witness what happened in the garden of house Bahnhofstrasse 12. She still remembers Fanny Rosenfelder’s terrified screams, when her brother Jacob was found hanged on that Sunday.

The second bank manager was Josef Wolfromm, the son of Wilhelm Frank’s sister Gertrud Frank, who was married to Wolf Wolfromm.

Heinrich’s cheese wholesale business at Ansbacher Strasse 4 was left to his sister Ida,’s daughter Sophia, his niece. Sophia’s was married to Heinrich Neumann.

Since Fredi Dottenheimer of Burgstallstrasse had also emigrated to St. Louis, we asked his son Steven and daughter Faye if they knew the two ladies. We wrote to them and received the following answer on December 7, 2005:

I spoke to my brother and neither one of us ever heard our father discuss Johanna or Julie Frank. We looked in the St. Louis directory and it seems neither one is alive or possibly they moved to another city. If we can help in any other way, don't hesitate to ask. We're hoping to be in Germany again next October and look forward to meeting you then.

The bank attorney Josef Wolfromm was born in Cronheim March 3, 1883. His parents were Wolf Wolfromm, who was a teacher in Cronheim from 1882 to 1921, and his wife Gertrud, born Frank. On March 20, 1911 Josef Wolfromm married Frieda Marx, born January 2, 1888 in Roth.


Photos of Frieda and Josef Wolfromm
	Photos of Frieda and Josef Wolfromm © Tom Breslauer

The family lived above the bank, on the second floor of the house at Nuernberger Strasse 5.

Herbert born July 21, 1913 in Gunzenhausen. Died in South Africa 1976	Herbert Wolfromm registered his departure for Nuernberg in 1930 already, and in 1936 he emigrated to South Africa.
Lisbeth born January 20, 1916 in Gunzenhausen, died 1974 in Stroudsburg, PA USA Lisbeth Wolfromm © Tom Breslauer	Lisbeth Wolfromm registered her departure for Nuernberg in 1932 and emigrated to New York in 1938. There she married Tom Breslauer, a survivor of concentration camp Dachau. The couple had two sons: James born February 1947, Larry born June 1950

In 2007 we received a letter from Tom Breslauer, Lisbeth Wolfromms husband. He gave us the above information.

Until recently the city archive carried the notice that Frieda Wolfromm had been taken to Dachau and was presumed dead. Her husband was said to have emigrated to America.

My mother-in-law was not in taken to a concentration camp, but my father-in-law was at Dachau at the same time that I was there. He had been apprehended in Gunzenhausen, and I in Offenbach.

After his liberation Josef Wolfromm and his wife lived in England until they had the opportunity to emigrate to the USA. Frieda worked as a maid until then.

Her employers provided an affidavit with which they vouched for Lisbeth’s parents, and they were able to come to the USA. In New York they both worked in a factory until after a few years Josef got a job as an accountant. Frieda worked in the factory till she was 65.

I was born October 22, 1916 in Hamburg, Germany, six weeks after my father had died in WWI in the “Battle on the Somme River”.

My whole family perished in concentration camps. My mother was killed in Riga in December 1941.

In 2005 I visited the City of Hamburg, which had sent me an invitation to attend the dedication ceremony of a plaque that was being placed in the front of our former home.

I have spent the last 18 years traveling all over the USA, speaking to students about my life in the Third Reich. During that time I received over 7000 letters from these young people.