| Born: | 06-25-1919 |
| Faculty: | Law School |
| Category: | Expelled student |
Friedrich Eugen FRENKEL (later: FRANKLYN), born on June 25th, 1915 in Vienna/Austro-Hungarian Empire [Austria] (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Vienna/Austria, citizenship 1938: Austria), son of Dr. Hermann Frenkel (1883–?, lawyer) and Klara Eva Frenkel, née Winkler (1892-?), lived in Vienna's 1st district, Neutorgasse 12, was last enrolled in the fall term of 1937/38 at the Law School in the 2nd year of his studies.
In 1938, after the takeover of power of National-Socialism he was forced to quit his studies for racist reason and to leave the University of Vienna.
His father was also persecuted as a Jew under National Socialism, his license to practice law was revoked, and he was forced to close his law firm and flee Vienna. He and his wife managed to leave the country in time – they were deregistered in Vienna on September 28th, 1938, with “address unknown.”
Friedrich Eugen's younger brother Ernst Jakob Frenkel (Ernest Jacob Franklyn, 1917–2006) was able to leave for Lucerne, Switzerland in the fall of 1938, his parents were in Klaipeda, Lithuania, at the time.
On November 1st, 1938, Friedrich Eugen himself submitted a request for assistance to the emigration department of the welfare center of the Jewish Community of Vienna and attempted to emigrate to China via Oslo, Norway, which failed at short notice. He then attempted to travel via Belgrade to Brussels and on to China. Just four months after this application, Kleipeda, where his parents had initially fled, was annexed by the German Reich. Friedrich Eugen managed to land in Ashkelon near Tel Aviv in the British Mandate of Palestine [Israel] on April 12th, 1939.
After all family members had successfully evaded the Third Reich, all four were stripped of their German citizenship in July 1941 and their assets were confiscated in favor of the Third Reich (legally effective by announcement in the Deutscher Reichsanzeiger No. 165 of July 18th, 1941). From then on, Friedrich Frenkel was stateless.
As a further legal consequence, his father was stripped of his doctorate, which he had acquired in 1910, by the University of Vienna in 1942 on racist grounds, as under National Socialism he was considered “unworthy of an academic degree from a German university because he was Jewish” (it was only reinstated in 1955, when the revocation was declared “null and void from the outset”).
Friedrich Eugen was drafted into the British Army in Palestine in May 1943 and received permanent residency and citizenship in Palestine [Israel] on August 26th, 1946, in Tel Aviv. At that time, he was married to Hanna, née Eppel(?), and they had one child, Amnon, and lived in Tel Aviv. 66, Hayarkon Street, and he worked as a commercial agent.
Little is known about his later life, except for a reference by the dean in April 1947 to Frenkel's last enrollment form from 1937, stating that the name of the student Friedrich Eugen Frenkel, according to his British Army pay book issued on May 18th, 1942, was changed to "Franklyn" – it is unclear whether Frenkel came to post-war Vienna as a soldier of the British occupying power and, if so, resumed his studies, or whether he graduated from the University of Vienna, but no degree can be found under either "Frenkel" or "Franklyn" until 1955.
Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") IUR 1936–1938, IUR GZ 974 of April 4, 1947; Deutscher Reichsanzeiger No. 165 of July 18th, 1941; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 386; SAUER/REITER-ZATLOUKAL 2010; 139 (2nd ed., 2022, 260); www.myheritage.at.
Herbert Posch
