The Men of the Frank Family, Part I: Shattered Hopes
- Mattan Segev-Frank
- May 26
- 11 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
A few months ago, I was asked by Yad Vashem to write the life story of my grandfather’s brother, Tamás Frank. As a holocaust survivor, they are interested in documenting and preserving his story and photos and asked for my assistance. After some thought, I decided to tell not only his story, but the inter-twined stories of his family members before, during and after the war, which aren’t complete without the influence of the others. Each of the men in the Frank family had hopes, goals and inspirations for their future, before World War 2 derailed the course of their lives entirely.
Originally, I intended to post the story on my blog on May 5th, the anniversary of Tamás’ liberation from Mauthausen, but I delayed out of fear to trigger or hurt his children. Eventually, I missed the date because I needed to muster up the courage to approach all of them and collect bits of information that were scattered over three continents, but it was well worth the wait – because thanks to the collective effort the story became much better; because my research didn’t hurt anyone, and instead gave closure to his children who lived in a cloud of mystery, not knowing their father’s full story; and because today is the 12th anniversary of my grandfather’s passing and that’s an appropriate date to share the first part of this three posts trilogy.
Tamás (Hebrew name Moshe Gavriel) Frank was born on the 16th of March 1925 in Nové Zámky, Slovakia to Arnold (Hebrew name Avraham) Frank and Terezia (Hebrew name Reizel) née Neuhausz. He was given the Hebrew name Moshe Gavriel, to commemorate two deceased relatives: Moshe after Terez’s maternal grandfather Moritz (Moshe) Schwitzer who had died from old age in Nové Zámky in 1919, and Gavriel after Arnold’s brother Gábor (Gavriel) Frank, who had died on the 3rd of March 1914 in Budapest from Nephritis at the age of 21. Tamás’ older brother Juraj (Yehuda) first learned this in his last decade, long after Tommy’s passing, and was genuinely surprised. He admitted that he interpreted the fact that his younger brother received two Jewish names while he only had one as a sign that their parents just loved Tommy more.
The family belonged to the Neolog Jewish community of Nové Zámky but was not very religious. Arnold Frank would only go to synagogue twice a year, on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. The Neolog community had an elementary school (grades 1-5) which operated in the Hungarian language under the direction of headmaster Jenő (Yaakov) Roth [1882-1944], father of the Israeli children’s books author Miriam Roth. Juraj started his education in this school, but Arnold didn’t want his sons to only know Hungarian, so when younger son Tamás started the first grade - both sons were put in a non-Jewish Slovak school, where they were educated in the Slovak language. At home, the family spoke Hungarian, but had German speaking maid and tutor for the sons. The kids became trilingual and knew Slovak, Hungarian and German.
In the Slovak census of 1930, the Frank family (Arnold, Terez and sons Juraj and Tamás) are listed in House No. 753, in Czuczovo námestie ulica No. 25, Nové Zámky. After elementary school, Juraj studied 2 years in a Slovak Gymnasium in Nové Zámky.
According to his son Juraj, Arnold bought a silent movie house in Nové Zámky, then a second one and then a third. One of those MAY have been ‘Kino Radio’ which opened in 1926 or 1927. Arnold and Terezia would leave their sons at home with their governors and go to work in the evenings. Their sons were left at home with their nanny and their tutor. When the talking film arrived, Arnold took Juraj with him to a different town to check out this new invention. They saw the film “The Jazz Singer” from 1927, starring Al Jolson, which was screened in Bratislava in 1929. The movie, as described by him "was about a black singer, who was played by a black painted white actor". Of course, it is about a Jewish singer who performs in black face, which would have never been done nowadays. This experience and the movie left a great and unforgettable impression on Juraj. Following this, Arnold turned his silent movie house in Nové Zámky into a talking cinema and made a living from managing it for a few years.
However, by 1933, the costs of adjusting the cinema for talking films were very high. This meant that ticket prices had to be increased, but people couldn’t afford that, so the business got stuck. Arnold decided to sell his cinemas and tried to start a new business in the oil industry.
I must share an anecdote which I heard from Arnold’s niece Manzi Ungar née Reich. She remembered that in the mid 1930’s, while her grandparents (Arnold’s parents) lived in Trnava not far from her family, grandpa Herman used to go every year for his parents’ Jahrzeit to sleep over at Arnold’s and the next day go to the cemetery with Arnold’s carriage. When he returned to Trnava he complained that Arnold’s horses only walk from the house to the local tavern and then refuse to go on. Arnold’s failed business endeavors became a joke among his sisters and parents.
Soon after he ventured into the oil business, a better and more stable offer came up, and he decided to take it: the ‘Kassai Bank’ from Košice in East Slovakia offered Arnold to manage a large farm of about 2500-3000 hectares, which were confiscated from a Hungarian nobleman who went bankrupt after spending his fortune on card games and women. The farm had around 300 hectares of agricultural lands of wheat, barley, rye, oats, sometimes corn, and the rest was a forest.
In August-September 1935, the Frank family relocated to Matiaška, 30km east from Prešov, and Arnold took over the farm, where he oversaw chopping of firewood and cutting it in a steam wood saw. The farm was too far away from Gymnasium level schools, so younger son Tamás moved to Matiaška with his parents, while 13 years-old Juraj was sent to live with his grandmother Ilona (Leah) Frank née Alt in Trnava, where he went to Gymnasium for one year. Arnold and Terezia intended for Juraj’s education to not be halted, but the move to Trnava, detachment from his parents (which felt to him like a deliberate abandonment) and having to deal with his grandmother, who he. Didn’t really know before and didn’t get along with, resulted with him being a wild and rebellious kid, who – in his own words – became the worst pupil in class anyhow.
Juraj first visited on his Christmas vacation in 1935 and recalled that after he went by train from Trnava to Prešov, his parents and brother waited for him at the train station and from there they went by carriage, covered in blankets to protect them from the freezing winter cold. They went from Prešov to Kapušany, then to Hanušovce nad Topľou, where the paved roads ended. From there Matiaška was only reachable by carriage, on a road which winded through a valley between two hills, where a small stream was partially frozen. The horses and carriages had to cross the stream a few times on the way to Matiaška.
The Frank family lived in the “farmhouse” which was a nobleman’s palace. They lived in 3 of the rooms and there was also kitchen, pantry, bathroom, a room for the maid and a room for the foresters and a few of the rooms were still vacant, and the family used them to store apples from the local trees, to keep them in hay so they wouldn’t freeze.
After the schoolyear ended, Juraj and Támás were moved to Prešov, where their parents hired a room for them in the flat of a gentile widow, who took care of them. They lived with her for a year and went to school in Prešov in a carriage led by two horses. Arnold worked in the farm in Matiaška for the Kassai Bank until 1937-8. By then, rising antisemitism was felt, and the Franks were the only Jews in Matiaška, so they stood out and were feeling unwelcomed there. Therefore, the whole family reuinited and moved to Prešov.They lived above the tavern of an old Jewish man, and both sons went to school in Prešov until May 1939. Tamás joined the Jewish youth organization ‘HaShomer Hatzair’.
Prešov, located in the Šariš region, was part of a broader area of Eastern Slovakia that had a significant German minority before the war. Following the Munich Agreement in September 1938, which led to the breakdown of Czechoslovakia and the subsequent establishment of the Slovak State in March 1939, the Slovak People's Party established its paramilitary fascist militia, the ‘Hlinka Guard,’ in 1938.
In Prešov of that era, amidst the growing German presence and influence, Juraj, who knew German at a high level, often served as a translator between German speaking soldiers and local Slovak-speaking teenagers, or as a messenger boy sent to purchase cigarettes for them.
One evening, the Frank family heard noises from outside, and when they peeked out the window, they saw the Slovak Hlinka guard soldiers dragging the old Jew who ran the tavern beneath their flat out to the street and beat him up severely.
On the 10th of March 1939, Juraj Frank had a rattling experience, which probably was the incentive for the rest of his life story from that day on: On that morning he got up and prepared for school, but when he went out, he saw posters on the streets, saying that the Army has taken over the government and is trying to prevent the split between Czechia and Slovakia. There was a demonstration against this military coup taking place in the city on that day, and so the schools are closed, and everyone is expected to join.
Juraj and his friends, who were mostly Czech and non-Jewish, decided they don’t care, but were happy that school was out, and went to the promenade to hang out and have fun instead. They went to eat cakes in a konditorei, and on their way back they already forgot about the protest and walked through the street where it was taking place.
It was a boulevard with two roads for cars and between them a pedestrian area. Juraj and his friends were walking in the center of the street when they saw the protest on the road to their right, so they stopped to look what’s going on. Suddenly, a military force arrived on road on their left side. The soldiers spread out in a row, an officer was yelling a few orders, and suddenly the soldiers all kneeled, then fired warning shots aimed towards the sky.
The protestors stood there and looked, but didn’t all run away, and suddenly the soldiers started shooting directly at them. Juraj and his friends were caught in between the two sides and managed to escape the scene intact, but students from the nearby schools who attended the protest were indeed shot and injured. There is a memorial in Prešov - a “hole” left by the bullets on the column or wall.
A few weeks later, in April 1939, Tamás Frank convinced his older brother Juraj to join him in “Hashomer Hatzair”. At first Juraj refused categorically, but after his brother told him there were hot girls in the group – he decided to try.
After 2 or 3 meetings, an unknown man came to the meeting of the youth organization and asked ‘who wants to immigrate to Israel?’. Juraj, who felt the growing antisemitic atmosphere, decided to raise his hands. In 1982 he said that he assumed this was aimless talk that will result in nothing, so he raised his hand mainly to impress the girls.
Arnold Frank, surprised by the letter after not hearing anything from his sons about this before, tried to understand what was this that asked for his son’s attendance in the middle of the school year. After hearing about the program, Arnold decided that it might be a smart move to send at least one of his sons away from growingly hostile Europe. Tamás also wanted to immigrate to Israel. In fact, between the two - he was the Zionist and not Juraj. However, at 14 years old, he was too young for the program and once again - his parents kept him with them in Slovakia.
Juraj quit his school and attended the “Youth Aliya” project’s training camp from the 15th of May 1939 for one month. As camp wrapped up in mid-June, participants were sent home and were told that within a week or two they’ll receive notice on their Aliyah. The notice didn’t arrive for over a month, and Arnold got angry and worried that his son was tricked by fraudulent Zionist organizations and lost a schoolyear because of them. Eventually a letter arrived, saying that they had to pay a fee for Juraj’s immigration. Arnold paid the fee and then again there was no news until August 1939. In August the teenagers were asked to arrive to Bratislava and wait for the call to get to the Bratislava train station and start their immigration.
It should also be noted, that Juraj left school during the seventh year of high school, out of eight. Despite Arnold’s worries – Juraj would have never graduated high school anyhow, because by the next year he would have been expelled from school by antisemitic laws.
In mid-August, Arnold and one of his sons accompanied Arnold’s niece Martha Beck nee Reich and her newlywed husband Eduard Beck to the train station in Bratislava, on their way out of the country. They immigrated to Canada and later moved to New York.
On the 1st of September 1939, Juraj arrived to Bratislava, where he was hosted by his mother’s uncle and aunt, Paul & Antonia Schwitzer. It was the very same day that Germany invaded Poland and World War 2 broke out. Juraj waited in Bratislava, unknowing if his immigration plans will come to be or not, with his father repeatedly calling and saying that if nothing happens very soon – he’d rather Juraj to come back home and be with the family.
On the 9th of September the call finally arrived, and Juraj was ordered to report at the Bratislava train station near the Carlton Hotel, at 4AM. When Juraj called his parents to say goodbye, Arnold told him that he is calling his brother Artur in Budapest and ask him to meet Juraj at the train station, to see his son before he leaves.
On the 10th of September 1939, relative Antonia Schwitzer pre-paid a cab driver to come and wake Juraj up, wait a few minutes while he gets dressed, and drive him to the train station. They left Slovakia on a train to Budapest, where they needed to get off the train, and take a bus to a different train station, from where the trains south to Italy were going. In the second train station, Juraj met his uncle Artur and aunt Adel for lunch, before embarking the train to Trieste, Italy.
In Trieste, the group had to wait for other youth groups to arrive from different places. The teenagers were housed in an immigrants’ house on Via del Monte No. 7, Trieste, arranged by the Jewish Agency for hospitality for Jews on their way to Israel. The teenagers spent their days playing soccer, until the 18th of October, when they embarked on the Italian Ship 'Gelilea'. They arrived to the port of Haifa on the 22nd of October 1939.
From that day on, Juraj went by his Hebrew name Yehuda Frank. He was sent with the “La’Shichrur” (For Liberation) group, to which he belonged since the training camp in Slovakia, to Sha'ar HaGolan, a Kibbutz near the Sea of Galilee, where they settled.
Fascinating story