About family Frank

Sigismund Frank was born in Krefeld Germany in the year of Revolutions, 1848.  He became a banker and on September 3, 1883 married the beautiful Lina Rothschild.  Her parents were Salomon and Jeannette Rothschild of Hanau.  They had a fine life together in Stuttgart for a time.  They had four children the fist of whom became, despite his fathers objections, a famous author and poet.  That was Bruno Frank, later came his sibling Helmuth, Lothar and Ruth.  Bruno left Germany, where he and my great Uncles had served in the army during WWI, immediately after the bookburnings of 1933.  He lived in Paris for a time and contributed to important Exil newspapers published in German and Yiddish there. 

Bruno was able to get an elusive American visa, in large part due to his celebrity, and he was able to sponsor my grandfather, Lothar, and Ruth who became an anesthesiologist in Brooklyn, NY.  That they were able to escape the Holocaust was largely due to Bruno.  Lothar and my grandmother Elizabeth emigrated to Hollywood.  He became a stock broker to many of the Exil Literatur figures including Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Franz Werfel, Lion Feuchtwanger and many others.  He and Bruno were also close to the talented son of Thomas, Klaus Mann. 

Bruno was married to Liesl Massari whose mother, Fritzi Massary was a very famous operetta star in Berlin and Europe in turn of the century Europe. 

My father, Anthony M. Frank, grew up there, attended Hollywood High School and went on to become U. S. Postmaster General from 1988-1992.  He was also a delegate for Robert F. Kennedy at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.  It was always important to my father to due public service for the country that took in our family during the Holocaust.  I am Randall Frank, living in northern California with my wife and two boys.