Sketchbook of drawings created by a former concentration camp prisoner

Sketchbook of drawings created by a former concentration camp prisoner 

Adolf Frankl (1903-1983) was born to Josef (1871-1944) and Esther (nee Nasch, 1876-1933) in Pozsony, Austria-Hungary (which became Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1919, and is now in Slovakia). Josef was a respected businessman with an interior design store. He had three brothers, Ignatz (1901-1945), Alexander Simson (1905-1993), and Leo (1907-1942), and a sister, Stefanie (later Reisner,1916-2009). They were wealthy, well-respected, and had a large extended family in town. Adolf attended the School of Applied Arts in Bratislava, and worked as a caricaturist and advertising artist on the side. After he graduated in 1921, Adolf began working in his father’s interior design business. In 1933, he married Renee Nachmias (1914-2007), and the couple had two children, Thomas (b.1934) and Erika (later Rothberg, 1936-2015). Although Adolf and Renee raised their children as liberal Jews, they ate Kosher and observed the holidays at the home of Renee’s parents with over 100 members of their extended family. In the fall of 1938, Germany annexed the Sudetenland, a border region of Czechoslovakia. By May of 1939, Germany, Hungary, and Poland partitioned Czechoslovakia, and Bratislava became part of the Nazi puppet state of Slovakia. Anti-Jewish violence and restrictions grew, and when World War II began in September 1939, Jewish shops were confiscated and Aryanized. The Frankl’s store was taken over by a man named Anton Csech, who was sympathetic towards Adolf and his family. Since Anton was not familiar with the interior design industry, he obtained special permission to keep Adolf on as an employee, which allowed him to continue supporting his family. Adolf’s brother, Alexander, immigrated to Palestine in 1939. Adolf and Renee moved their family to her parents’ home, and later had to move into a shared home in the Jewish sector of the city. Slovakia joined the Axis in November 1940. In June 1941, after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the Frankl’s home was raided by the German and Slovakian soldiers, and their property was confiscated. When authorities began arresting Jews for forced labor, Adolf and his family were given special identification cards. Adolf was identified as an economic contributor, which protected him and his family from deportation. Adolf’s father, Josef, had gone to the hospital before the large-scale arrests began, and remained hidden there under false documentation that Stefanie and a family friend procured for him. On September 9, 1941, a series of new decrees included the mandatory wearing of a yellow Star of David. Because of his professional status, Adolf was issued a small, plastic pin to wear instead of a large badge. In March 1942, Slovakia signed a formal agreement with Germany to begin deporting Jews as part of the Final Solution. The Frankls began fostering Benjamin Klein, a Jewish boy who had been smuggled from Krakow, Poland. Benjamin was not registered as a Jew with the authorities, and therefore was not on the lists when Adolf and his family were arrested on September 28, 1944. Benjamin found refuge with neighbors, while the rest of the family was taken to the freight train station. Adolf was separated from the rest of the family at the station, and Renee told an officer that they were there by mistake and that her husband was not Jewish. The officers reasoned that Adolf still had Jewish ancestry, forced him onto the train, and escorted Renee and the children out of the train station. Adolf was transported to Sered concentration camp. While there, he falsified two work cards and an identification for “mixed marriage,” which protected him from immediate deportation. He volunteered for several work positions, hoping to keep himself off the transports to Auschwitz. Adolf made a point of walking around to various barracks to exchange information and tradable goods. He came across many people that he knew, including relatives of Renee as well as his brother, Ignaz, and Ignaz’ wife and son. In October 1944, Adolf learned that his father, Josef, died. When Renee’s parents, Frida (1886-1945) and Oskar (1881-1945) Nachmias, arrived at Sered, they were all questioned, exposing Adolf’s lie about his wife’s religion. Adolf and his in-laws were deported to Auschwitz on the next transport. On November 4, Adolf arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center in German-occupied Poland. There, he was tattooed with the number B 14395 and assigned to Barrack 11. By the time Adolf arrived at Birkenau, gassing had stopped, following the October riot in which prisoners had blown up one of the crematoriums. He falsely claimed that he was a skilled weaver, and was subsequently assigned to a series of crews, including weaving, dismantling damaged barracks, sorting parachute and rubber waste, and dragging latrine and food barrels. Adolf volunteered for as much as he could to prove to the SS guards that he was a capable worker. Although gassings had stopped, the prisoners were tortured, malnourished, and treated inhumanely. Adolf was caught and beaten multiple times for trading goods for cigarettes. He also witnessed his brother, Ignatz, and nephew being beaten. Ignatz was beaten so severely that he was admitted to the sick barracks and later died. In January 1945, Auschwitz was evacuated in advance of the Soviet arrival and Adolf was among 2,000 prisoners sent on a forced march to Gleiwitz. One night, Adolf and a group of 20 other sick prisoners were forced to stand almost to their necks in snow overnight, guarded by soldiers and dogs. When they woke the following morning, their two guards had fled. Adolf and his group made their way to the Auschwitz subcamp Althammer (in the town of Stara Kuźnia). Most of the camp had been evacuated, except for 150 prisoners too sick to march. Adolf hid in a typhus barrack, where he became so weak that he passed out and remained unconscious for three days. Soviet forces liberated the camp on January 27, 1945. After liberation, Adolf made his way to Katowice, then Krakow, through a combination of walking and hitchhiking with the Soviet army. He stayed in Krakow for about a month, working as a servant for a countess. He returned to Bratislava in April 1945, shortly after the liberation of the city. Adolf reunited with his wife and children, who spent the war hiding in homes on the outskirts of Bratislava. While in hiding, Renee received financial support from Anton Csech, the man who took over their family business. Adolf’s sister, Stefanie, her husband and child had also been in hiding under false names with a family near Bratislava. Although Adolf’s brothers, Leo and Ignatz, died in the camps, Ignatz’s wife and daughter survived Auschwitz. Adolf and his family were able to return to their home, only to find that the Germans who had lived there trashed it. In 1946, the children returned to school and Adolf reopened his shop. Shortly after Adolf and Renee had another son, Jonny (b. 1947). In 1948, their business was seized and nationalized during communist revolution in Slovakia. Adolf planned to take the family to Israel, where his brother, Alexander, was living, but they went through multiple rounds of paying for invalid visas. In 1950, they immigrated to Vienna, Austria, where Adolf set up a small art studio. Although he suffered from fear, migraines, insomnia, and nightmares until his death, Adolf created paintings that helped him cope with his experiences during the Holocaust. The family prepared to immigrate to either Australia, where Stefanie and her family had moved, or to the United States. They sailed for New York in 1957, but eventually returned to Europe. After Adolf’s death, his children continued to run a gallery exhibiting his work until its closing in 2017. 

Sketchbook of drawings created by a former concentration camp prisoner