Jews in Leipzig - The University of Texas at Austin

Introduction
Richard Frank was a manufacturer of textiles. He was born in the city of Halle in
1870, the year before the foundation of the German Empire. He moved to the city of
Leipzig at the age of five, and enjoyed a fairly typical upper-class existence. He went to
the classical Gymnasium, served in the army, even reaching lower officer rank. He
attended the University of Leipzig, opened his own factory, had a family. He seemed not
especially handicapped by the fact of being a Jew. After the collapse of the German
Empire, Frank’s professional career blossomed even more. The Weimar Republic was
explicitly devoted to the equality of its citizens, and Frank’s private success now took on
a public character as a result. From 1920 to 1933, he served as a trade judge at the
regional court.
But in 1933, of course, the German state changed its form and its intent toward its
Jewish citizens. The effect on Frank’s life was sudden and stark. He was ejected from
his official position, and saw his entire life—both professional and personal—constricted.
By 1937, his enterprises had begun to disappear, the result of Nazi “trusteeship” and then
in 1939 under straight-forward “Aryanization.” He was eventually required to wear a
yellow star on his clothing, to move from his home with his wife into a so-called
“Judenhaus”, an over-crowded collective house, a sort of miniature ghetto. He was only
spared from deportation and death by being in a mixed marriage with a Lutheran woman,
and just barely at that.
After the war ended, Frank’s life changed again. Under the Soviet occupation and
then the German Democratic Republic, he was the first Chair of the re-founded Jewish
religious community, the Gemeinde. He occupied an official role with the Trade and
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