Maasstraat 14
Schiedam
David Frank, born in Rotterdam on December 30, 1903, was a son of Izaak Frank and Rebekka van der Stam. He married on August 5, 1925 to the non-Jewish Hendrika Albertha Sophia van Oers, a daughter of Franciscus Cornelis van Oers and Sophia Pieternella Schoonenberg. A son, Harry Izaak, was born from this marriage on January 19, 1926. Both David's wife and his son survived the war.
David Frank was the second child of Isaac and Rebekah Frank. He had siblings, i.e. Wilhelm, Mozes, Marianna, Meijer, Jacob, Henriette and Joseph. Two brothers and a sister died young before the war, but his other farmers and sister survived the war.
David Frank had already sailed twice as a waiter on a ship from the Holland America Line to New York before the war, where he tried to naturalize as an American, which he failed to do. Back in Rotterdam he worked in various grand hotels in the city as a waiter and later earned his living as a textile merchant.
On June 15, 1926, six months after the birth of his son, the family moved to Utrechtsestraat 29 II in Amsterdam, from where they moved to Ferdinand Bolstraat 107 III after four weeks. However, on November 29 of that year, the family moved back to Rotterdam. His last known address was Maasstraat 14 in Schiedam.
On August 3, 1943, David Frank was arrested and taken to Westerbork, where he was put (presumably as a mixed marriage) in Penal Barracks 67. In the month of August David did a lot of work to gather evidence showing that he was married and that he was son is not Jewish so that he would not be deported either, which has all been successful. In 1944, however, his son is still in a raid
arrested and had to do forced labor in Germany.
However, it also meant that David Frank had to stay in Westerbork for a long time, but was finally deported to Auschwitz on March 3, 1944 as a criminal case with 731 other deportees. The transport arrived there on March 5 or 6, 1944 where he was given prisoner number 174733 and was employed in Monowitz.
Between January 18 and 21, 1945, prisoners from Auschwitz were evacuated to other camps. According to two surviving witnesses, Messrs de Wolf and Kattenburg from The Hague, who made a statement on sealed paper on July 22, 1946, David Frank died on January 21, 1945 in front of him during a transport from Monowitz to Buchenwald.
However, in a letter from 1969 to his son H.J. Frank states that his father David Frank was no longer alive by May 9, 1945. Partly on the basis of that statement, his date of death and place was officially established as on 9 May 1945 in Central Europe.
Sources include Rotterdam City Archives, David Frank and Izaak Frank family cards; City Archive of Amsterdam, home cards Utrechtsestraat 29, Ferdinand Bolstraat 107; The Green Amsterdammer; statements by J. de Wolf and J. Kattenburg from 1946; Letter from the Red Cross 1969 to H.J. Frank Betr. David Frank; website wiewaswie.nl/wedding David Frank / Hendrika van Oers; the Jewish Council archive, registration cards of David Frank; additions from a visitor of the website and information of grandson David Frank.
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