Louis Franck (politician, October 1868)

Louis Franck (born October 24, 1868 in Altona , † July 17, 1951 in Haifa ) was a German politician.

Live and act

Louis Franck was the son of Mendel Loeb Franck (1803-1882) and his wife Eva, née Beith (1827-1919). The ancestors on the father's side had lived in Altona for several generations, the mother came from Emden . He graduated from a Jewish elementary school and switched to a secondary school in Altona when he was nine years old.

After being one year old , Franck worked for a non-Jewish wholesaler for colonial goods, for which he soon traded on the stock exchange and became a traveling salesman. He then made up his Abitur during ten months of schooling and then studied medicine at universities in Strasbourg, Berlin and Würzburg. In addition to this, he mostly dealt with English literature and history as well as extensively with classical German literature.

After graduating, Franck worked in his own, newly opened practice in Altona. There, the popular physician enjoyed a high reputation among residents of all religions. The "Medical Council Dr. Franck “was known nationwide.

Immediately after its founding, Franck joined the Zionist movement, in which only a small number of German Jews participated at the time. He also founded the German organization Misrachi . For several decades until his emigration he took over the chairmanship of the Altona High German Israelite Congregation. On his initiative, the ninth Zionist World Congress in Hamburg in 1909 was the only such gathering in Germany. He gave the welcome speech on behalf of the Altona community. This should have been a high point of its effectiveness in the Jewish public.

After the seizure of power , Franck was forced to leave the German Reich . He traveled to Israel via Holland and England, where he also achieved a high reputation. In the last years of his life he lived with his youngest daughter in Haifa, where he was buried after his death in 1951.

family

Franck was married to Fanny Strauss (* July 5, 1880, † July 1, 1921), whose father Samuel Strauss was a Karlsruhe banker. The couple had several children:

• The daughter Isabella (1906–1945) married the future chief rabbi Simon Dassheim in Amsterdam . The couple died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp .
• The son Moses Mendel (1907–1966) worked as a doctor in Jerusalem.
• The daughter Judith (* 1909) married Alexander Altmann .
• The son Samuel (1910–1969) worked as a teacher in Israel for a long time.
• The son Ernst (* 1913) was a member of the Israeli Legation Council in London . He later worked as the director of the Pica agricultural credit union in Israel.
• The daughter Elisabeth (* 1916) married the industrialist Baruch Weitzmann who worked there in Haifa.

literature

• Alexander Altmann: Franck, Louis . In: Schleswig-Holstein Biographical Lexicon . Volume 2. Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1971, pp. 148–149.