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Frankfurt am Main: Frank Family Center at the JMF

Above: “It’s a miracle I’m still alive”, Otto Frank. Photo, 17 Jun 2023 (X70).

Familie Frank Zentrum, Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt

Frank Family Centre, Jewish Museum Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main is a city I’ve visited countless times since 2001, but I hadn’t known until recently that Anne Frank and her sister, Margot, were born in Frankfurt am Main, or that their parents, Otto and Edith, had lived in Frankfurt for almost ten years before moving their family to Amsterdam in early-1934. I’ve put together a list of places and traces the Frank family spent and left in Frankfurt am Main.

Here I cast light on the Frank Family Center (FFC), both memorial and historical record of the European-Jewish Frank family which was added to the permanent collection of the Jewish Museum Frankfurt (JMF) in 2020. Having begun in 2012, the Frank Family Center brings together an extensive collection of material belonging to the Frank-Elias families. The archive includes photographs, official documents, hand-written letters, art, books, household items, and furniture. The items provide a glimpse into the lives of the Frank- and Elias-families across Europe; there’s happy times, catastrophe and loss, and the strength gained in survival. The FFC has been designed for the public to view a part of the archive on permanent display in an open museum setting, as well as for research parties to pursue various avenues of academic inquiry.

Upon entry into the space, the first panel includes the following introductory text which I’ve modified to improve clarity.

The Jewish Museum Frankfurt holds a large number of objects belonging to Anne Frank’s family who had lived in Frankfurt for several generations.

Between 1929 and 1933, the entire family departed Frankfurt am Main and established new lives in Basel, Paris, Amsterdam, and London. In 1942 Amsterdam, Otto and Edith Frank, along with their daughters, Margot and Anne, went into hiding to escape imminent deportation. In August 1944, the secret location was revealed to the authorities, and the family was detained, and deported to Auschwitz. Of the four in the family, only Otto Frank survived, who subsequently devoted the rest of his life to acquainting and educating the world with the diary of his murdered daughter, Anne.

In 1933, Anne’s paternal grandmother Alice Frank sold their home in Frankfurt am Main, and moved to Basel to join her daughter, Leni Elias, and her family. Alice was able to take some of the family belongings with her from Frankfurt to Switzerland, including personal photos and documents. Her moving boxes also contained furniture, porcelain, silverware, and paintings. The family’s heritage as documents of their previous lives in Frankfurt was carefully preserved in Basel.

This room of the Frank Family Center provides an introduction to this family heritage and to the history of the Frank and Elias families.

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Frankfurt & the Franks: Anne, Edith, Margot, Otto

Above: The Frank family in happier times; seen left-to-right are Margot, Otto, Anne, and Edith, respectively. Display at the Frank Family Centre at the Jewish Museum Frankfurt, 17 Jun 2023 (X70).

I hadn’t realized how long an impression would last, decades after having read in high-school the diary of a young girl stuck in hiding for years. Much later down the line and standing in front of a house in a quiet neighbourhood in a German city, I could almost hear the laughter of children in the backyard and the gentle rebuke of a mother to one of her daughters, years before one of the girls ever considered writing her thoughts down into a book.

The story of Anne Frank and her family are well known. Her father and businessman Otto Frank moved his family from Frankfurt am Main to Amsterdam in 1934 to escape increasing Nazi discrimination against Jews. Otto survived capture, deportation, and time in the camps; but his wife and two daughters did not. After liberation in 1945, Otto Frank returned to Amsterdam and wrote letters to relatives in Basel. He learned how the diary written by his daughter Anne had been carefully hidden; reading her daughter’s thoughts would change the remaining course of his life. In the early-1950s, he moved to Basel, Switzerland, to be closer to his sister’s family. He and his extended family spent time and energy for the rest of their lives dedicated to translation efforts and the distribution of Anne’s diary as a document of family memory, world history, and essential education; and to the collection of memories and belongings of lost family members. Otto died in 1980, and is buried in Birsfelden cemetery, just east of Basel proper.

Much of the story has been written about the Frank family’s time in Amsterdam, but I hadn’t been aware of the family roots in Frankfurt am Main, despite my countless times passing through and multiple stays in the city since 2001 when I moved to Heidelberg. I wanted to learn about their time in Frankfurt am Main, before the family left for Aachen and Amsterdam in 1933–1934. What follows below is my examination of some of the places and traces left behind by the Frank family in Frankfurt am Main.

ANNELIES Marie Frank, daughter: b/✵ 12 June 1929, Frankfurt am Main – d/✟ March 1945, Bergen-Belsen.
EDITH Frank (née Holländer), mother: b/✵ 16 January 1900, Aachen – d/✟ 6 January 1945, Auschwitz.
MARGOT Betti Frank, daughter: b/✵ 16 February 1926, Frankfurt am Main – d/✟ March 1945, Bergen-Belsen.
OTTO Heinrich Frank, father: b/✵ 12 May 1889, Frankfurt am Main – d/✟ 19 August 1980, Birsfelden.

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25T03 Night of Museums

E02 (Europe day 2), F02.

Good timing is everything. Only yesterday did I learn Frankfurt is hosting Nacht der Museen today (10 May). Over 40 museums and institutions open their doors tonight at 7pm, and close between 1 and 2am. One nifty 17€ price purchasable online includes access to all participating venues, as well as public transport.

I decide to visit the Jewish Museum from 845pm to 1030pm, and the Städel Art Museum from 11pm to 145am.

*Queue to the Jewish Museum Frankfurt (JMF). JMF staff went down the queue and took orders for drinks at the patio bar.*

*Frankfurt, 1929: 3-year old Margot Frank with her baby sister Annelies. Photo likely taken by their father Otto.*

*Frankfurt, 1929: Frank family nanny Katherina Stilgenbauer with baby Annelies as her big sister Margot looks on.*

*42 internationally translated versions of Anne Frank’s diary.*

Otto Frank displays the Auschwitz number tattooed on his left arm. “It’s a miracle that I’m still alive,” he said. On Otto’s maternal side, the Frank family have been present in Frankfurt since the late 17th-century.

*Städel Art Museum. The queue to the east was about 100-people deep. The queue to the west was “only” 20 deep; I chose wisely.*

*There’s very little doubt who and what these figures represent.*

*“Untitled (Genoa Riot)”, by Armin Boehm, 2007.*

*“Mountain King (Tunnel) 2 Planets”, by Joseph Beuys, cast 1971.*

*Very appropriate for Frankfurt: “Johann Wolfgang von Goethe”, by Andy Warhol, 1982.*

I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 10 May 2025. I received neither request nor compensation for this content. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.