Interview with Otto Frank

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Interview with Otto Frank

EDITOR's NOTE: This interview was done in Otto’s home in California by Ray Kuehne. Paula was present and contributed to the discussion throughout. This was an informal "interview," in which our disjointed discussion ranged back and forth over many current, as well as historical topics. Therefore, we felt it best not to transcribe everything on the tape, but to include only items relevant to Otto’s history. Although the following is written in the third person, we have tried to preserve the "tone" of Otto’s comments as much as possible. We have keep the tape and could go back over it to include Otto’s exact words, if desired. Family members should let us know if this is their wish.

Interview with Otto Frank (February 1998)

Otto was born in 1913. By age 16, he had completed school and went to work. He did not go into an apprenticeship because the family couldn’t afford it. Apprentices earned very little money. Therefore, he first went to work for an electronic firm that made and repaired electric meters. (In an aside, Otto said that Erich Kuehne also worked at the same firm before he and Elfriede went to America, and that Erich lived in their home for a while. Every morning when they went to work, Erich had a book in his hand. He was reading all the time. That sounds like Erich Kuehne.)

Otto worked there for two years. Then he got sick, probably from the mercury used in the business. He stayed home for quite a while, maybe a year. After that, he worked in a dairy. Once, while driving a truck for the dairy, he had an accident and spilled quite a bit of milk in the street. Paula said it happened because Otto didn’t have enough sleep. It seems that Otto had recently met Paula and was spending time with her, rather than getting enough sleep. He kept his job, despite the accident. Otto said that he always paid a portion of his earnings to his mother, to contribute to the family’s budget.

About 1933-34, Otto spent one year in the Arbeitsdank program, in which all young men were required to work on public projects. He spent his year in Mecklenburg building streets, etc.

His older sister, Elfriede went to America in 1929, when he was 16. He had also thought of going to America. It was the common goal of many young people, especially among church members, at that time. But when he was old enough, he couldn’t do it because the Hitler era had begun. America began to restrict immigration of Germans at that time, apparently concerned that some could be Nazis.

Otto married Paula in 1936, at age 23. He and Paula say that they literally met in the middle of a street, in Hamburg. Paula and some girl friends were crossing a street to go dancing. Otto and a friend were crossing in the opposite direction. The boys asked, "where are you going?" and then decided to go with them. As they began to date, Paula came in frequent contact with Otto’s mother (Grete Schloss Frank), whose influence eventually led to her baptism in the LDS church.

Otto’s first experience with the German army was an eight week mandatory training period. This took place after he and Paula married. Otto spent four of those weeks in Bohemia-Moravia, a former Czechoslovakian area that had recently been given to Germany to appease Hitler. Otto never served in the regular army. After returning from training, he worked for a company called Blohm and Voss in a suburb of Hamburg, where Messerschmidt airplanes were built. Because this was considered "critical work," his employer exempted him from military service each time Otto received an induction notice.

Otto continued this work throughout the war. Finally, in the last four weeks of the war, he was called to active duty in the Volkssturm, a "home guard" composed mostly of older men. Otto’s father (Richard Frank) was also assigned to the Volksturm. Otto’s induction notice into the Volksturm came at the time of intensive Allied bombing of Hamburg. For example, of twelve apartments in their block, all but theirs were totally destroyed one night just before he received his notice. Otto and Paula were in the basement when this happened. They considered themselves lucky to still have a place to live. Hamburg was burning everywhere, partially as a result of the phosphorus bombs used by the Allied planes. During an earlier period of bombing, Paula and her two boys had been sent to Bavaria for safety, along with other women and children from Hamburg. They were in Bavaria only a few weeks. But after their return, the bombings became more intensive.

Otto was able to delay his induction for a couple of weeks to help repair the damage to their apartment. When he finally joined his assigned unit, it was at a military camp not far from Hamburg. The camp contained mostly injured soldiers and older men. One night, about four weeks after he joined his unit, an alarm was sounded and they were told to march to a nearby bridge to confront the approaching enemy. There, they met British forces whose leaders told this group of unprepared "soldiers" to advance no further and to return to their base before someone got hurt. Otto said they gladly complied. Thus ended the war for Otto.

Otto was a prisoner of war for about 14 weeks before he was released. During that time, his unit was given very little to eat. He described his typical daily ration as five flour "cookies" and a little butter. His group managed to supplement that ration by using a screwdriver to make a small hole in an overhead corn storage bin at their place of confinement. They were able to obtain some ears of corn through that hole. (Obviously, this POW camp was in some type of barn.) Finally, Otto was released and arrived home, unannounced, on the day of the marriage of his brother, Erwin, to Ruth.

How did Otto and Paula feel when the war ended? They were just glad it was over. The fact that Germany had lost the war was not an issue or of any concern. They had spent too many days in the crowded basements and other air raid shelters. Those were terrible years, they both said..

The British occupied the area around Hamburg. Otto, because of his mechanical skills, was given work at a British base repairing vehicles. But although Otto had a job, food was hard to find. Fortunately, during Otto’s time as a POW, he had become acquainted with a fellow soldier, a farmer who told Otto to see him after they were released. He had a big farm with lots of fruit trees: apples, pears, and plums. With the help and encouragement of Otto’s boss at the British base, Otto was often recorded as being "sick" so he could work for this farmer. The boss also received some fruit through this process. Otto worked for the farmer the entire first summer and then continued to visit often until he emigrated to America in 1952. Otto said he received a little pay from the farmer, but took home 30 pounds of apples or pears every night. All this went into their basement, which smelled very good as a result of the fruit stored there.

Fuel was also hard to find. The winters were cold. They had no coal to heat. At times they went to the railroad tracks to steal some. Once, he had filled a sack with coal from a rail car. He threw the filled sack to the ground and jumped down after it. The police were waiting with big dogs. (Otto was released, but I forgot to ask if he kept the coal.) Another source of fuel was wood. Everyone tried to take the wood fences of the farmers. And next door to Otto’s apartment was a kindergarten with some wooden play equipment. That wood went into the basement, also. Everyone looked all over for wood. Once, they found a nearby plot of earth on which oil had been spilled. They put some sand on the oil to soak it up and harden it. Then they took it home to be burned. It was dangerous to burn this fuel in their home stoves, but they had to try everything possible.

When the war was over, Otto and Paula again started to think about going to America. But his mother, Grete, went first. Parents with children in America were given priority for immigration. Otto’s first application was rejected because of a misunderstanding by U.S. immigration officials. They thought that he had some connection with the Nazi party because he had been a member of a trade union that was affiliated with Hitler’s party. However, such union membership had been mandatory for everyone that worked in that aircraft plant. Eventually, this question was resolved and Otto and Paula and their two boys emigrated in 1952.

When Otto arrived in Salt Lake City, a friend from Hamburg who worked at Hill Field Air Force Base met him. He told Otto to come to Hill Field the next day. Although Otto couldn’t speak English (he had taken two years of English as a young man in school), he knew how to read blueprints and how to fix airplanes. The Korean War was in progress and Otto was needed. They hired him immediately and gave him a top salary. Otto said, "I didn’t know much English, but I knew how to use a hammer."

A few years later, in 1956, Otto and Paula moved to Los Angeles. Why Los Angeles? After four years at Hill Field, the Korean War ended. A major layoff at Hill Field soon followed and Otto lost his job. At that time, Otto and his family took a vacation to Los Angeles. While there, he interviewed for a job with the Lear company and was immediately hired. Paula remembers one interesting part of Otto’s new job. Lear built or outfitted a new plane for Hugh Hefner. Paula remembers that the plane had a very large, round bed in it, and "bunnies" were painted on the outside.

Question: Otto, did you encounter any anti-German prejudice during his early years in America? Reply: "No," he said. But the question reminded Paula of something else. She said that some time after their arrival in America, they received an inquiry from an unknown organization that assumed that Otto and Paula might be of Jewish heritage. That was because the family had changed their surname of Fick to Frank in 1931. "Frank" was considered to be predominately a Jewish name [like Anne Frank].

I then asked about the reason for the change of name. According to Otto, the change followed the family’s move from Harburg to Hamburg that year. Grete went with one of the girls to register her in the new school. A teacher said to Grete, "Don’t you think that girl should have a better surname. Grete agreed, but Richard had to be convinced first. He was not excited about changing his name. After all, it had always been his family name. Otto did not know who suggested the name of Frank. Perhaps the same school official. In any case, Richard finally agreed and the change was made. Otto said he was glad to have the name changed. He recalls often being made fun of by other students as a child at school. Paula said she was glad the name was changed before she married Otto.

As previously reported (Newsletter, December 1997), my mother, Elfriede, has several related documents. The oldest document is dated 23 September 1931. It says that Richard Carl Wilhelm Fick of Hamburg "now carries the family name of Frank." The 1931 document states that the change applied to Richard’s wife and to his minor children. Otto, the second oldest child, was 18 at that time and therefore, no longer a minor. So he probably had to request his own name change. He has a revised birth certificate, dated 6 Oct. 1931, with the new surname of Frank.
In 1931, Elfriede was already married and in America, thus she was never a "Frank."

[end of interview]

Name Change:

Following is a translation and summary of the documents re: the above change of family name.

Document #1 is an "Abschrift" dated 23 September 1931, and signed by a representative of the Prussian Minister of Justice. It states: "The worker Richard Carl Wilhelm Fick of Hamburg, born 26 Feb. 1890, in Wolgast, Kreis Greifswald, now carries the family name of Frank instead of his earlier family name. This change of family name applies to his wife and to his minor children who are under his parental control and who carry his previous name."

Document #2 is a revised birth certificate, dated 7 September 1934, in Wolgast. It gives the original birth information, which was: "The worker Friedrich Fick, residing in Wolgast, evangelical religion, and his wife, Caroline Fick, born Buggenhagen, evangelical religion, had a male child born to them in their home on 26 Feb. 1890, at 8:30 a.m., who was given the name of Richard Carl Wilhelm." In the left margin is a typed note, dated 20 October 1931, which states that on 23 September 1931, the Prussian Minister of Justice authorized the person named in the certificate, namely Richard Carl Wilhelm Fick, to use the family name of Frank, as described above in document #1.

Document #3 is a revised birth and baptism record from the Evangelisches Pfarramt in Wolgast on 27 March 1939. It states that: "Richard Carl Wilhelm Frank was born on 26 February 1890, in Wolgast, and baptized an 23 March 1890. The father was Johann Joachim Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Fick, a worker. The mother, Amalie Caroline Wilhelmine Buggenhagen." The following note was added at the bottom: "The Prussian Minister of Justice on 23 Sept. 1931, authorized the worker Richard Carl Wilhelm Fick to use the family name Frank."