Hans Frankenthal - Discrimination Prior To The Holocaust

Discrimination Prior To The Holocaust

In 1937 Max Frankenthal was arrested after allegations from German farmers in Friedeburg that he had attempted to manipulate the weighing scale in order to haggle the price of stock down. He was only held for several hours because the owner of the scales spoke out in his defence. This was, however only the first of several groundless arrests that were used to intimidate the Jewish community of Schmallenberg. The charges ranged from claims of theft to Rassenschande (crimes against race).

On 10 November 1938, the local synagogue was burnt down and most of the Jews were arrested. All over the village Jewish homes were raided and vandalised. The Nazis dubbed the country-wide event "Kristallnacht". The women and children were released the same day, but the men remained in custody in a shelter for the homeless. The families of those still in custody were able to bring food to their loved ones until the inmates were transferred to the Gestapo jail in nearby Dortmund. The Jews remaining in Schmallenberg were then forced to sign over the title deeds of their property with the promise that it would bring their husbands and sons back. During the Kristallnacht, only one German in Schmallenberg is known to have protested. Dina Falke stood on the street and asked the SA troopers what the Jews had ever done to them until she was silenced by worried family members. Several citizens actively aided the SA in destroying Jewish property and raiding Jewish Homes. Robert Krämer allegedly helped the SA by providing straw to set the synagogue in flames.

On 28 November, the Jewish men were allowed to return home. They had been transferred from the jail in Dortmund to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin. Max Frankenthal had to sign his agreement of the selling of his land to the Arisierung program. This program involved the confiscation of Jewish-owned property for the fictitious Aryan master race. In addition to the confiscation of their property, the Jewish men had to prove that they would leave the country within several weeks, or face the penalty of returning to the concentration camps, this time with their families. Max Frankenthal tried to begin plans for the family's emigration, but eventually was unable to come up with money, and was still convinced that the Nazis would not continue their harassment of his family.

At this point the Nazis began to make life for the Jews even harder. They implemented Arbeiteinsätze, in which the Jews were forced to work on projects such as digging ditches to hold water for fighting fires in the upcoming war. Max Frankenthal worked in a factory owned by a friend where he avoided exploitation until the factory was no longer able to hold forced labourers. He and his brother, Emil Frankenthal, were then sent to work for the city, where Emil died of a stroke. The German government ceased to recognise the citizenship of Jews and forced them to add the name Sara to all female names and Israel to all male names.

As the school in Schmallenberg was now closed to Jewish children, Frankenthal and his brother began attending classes at a workshop in Dortmund where they learnt hand skills, foreign languages and were educated in Zionism. In May 1941 this workshop was closed by the Dortmund Gestapo and the students were forced to work for the state. Frankenthal and his brother began work for a roadworks company named Lahrmann. He later learnt that his father also worked in the same work party.