Margit Frankau

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Margit Frankau , née Rosenthal (born June 13, 1889 in Graz , † November 19, 1944 in the Theresienstadt ghetto ) was an Austrian deaconess . At the time of National Socialism she was persecuted as a Jew and was a so-called prominent prisoner in the Theresienstadt ghetto. Frankau died in the ghetto due to illness.

Life

Margit Rosenthal was the daughter of a wealthy Jewish businessman who came from Frankfurt am Main . She grew up with her two siblings in Graz and was raised Protestant. In 1905 she graduated from the girls' school in Graz. She first completed a business course and then learned to be an English teacher. The German nationalist woman changed her surname in 1916 from Rosenthal to the maiden name of her mother Frankau.

In 1911 in Munich she trained as an auxiliary nurse at the Bavarian Red Cross . From 1912 she worked at the pediatric surgery and orthopedic department of the Graz University Clinic, where she soon became a surgical nurse under Hans Spitzy . From 1913 under Spitzy she also worked at the kk Reservespital 11 in Vienna and was awarded the Silver Medal of Honor of the Red Cross with war decorations for her work there as a Red Cross nurse during the First World War . After the end of the war, Frankau remained Spitzy's private assistant until 1934, who soon afterwards headed the Vienna Orthopedic Spital Speising and became a university professor.

After the end of her employment with Spitzy, Frankau became a deaconess at the Gallneukirchner Diakonissenanstalt in November 1934, and until December 1942 she took on corresponding nursing activities at the Graz sanatorium, which later became the deaconess hospital. After Austria's annexation to the German Reich and the outbreak of World War II , Frankau asked the superior of the Diakoniegemeinschaft in mid-September 1941 whether she would also have to wear the Jewish star. Superintendent Auguste Mohrmann replied shortly afterwards that her association could not do anything about it and that the local police authority was responsible for these questions.

Frankau was finally to ghetto Theresienstadt deported , where she arrived on 6 January 1943rd There she received the status of a so-called celebrity prisoner and worked as a healing assistant in the health service. Frankau died of meningitis on November 19, 1944 in the ghetto hospital . Your short vita is contained in the photo album of the Theresienstadt bundle .

literature

  • Axel Feuß: The Theresienstadt-Konvolut , Altonaer Museum in Hamburg, Dölling and Galitz Verlag, Hamburg / Graz 2002, ISBN 3-935549-22-9 .
  • Gerhard Fürstler, Peter Malina: I was only doing my job . On the history of nursing in Austria during the Nazi era . Facultas, Vienna 2004.
  • Gerhard Fürstler: Blessed in the office of deaconess. Pictures of life from Gallneukirchen deaconesses . Manuscript for the publication of the same name. Archive of the Diakoniewerk Gallneukirchen, Upper Austria 2005.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerhard Fürstler: Nursing in the time of National Socialism  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.oegkv.at  
personal data
SURNAME Frankau, Margit
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian deaconess and victim of the Holocaust
DATE OF BIRTH June 13, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Graz
DATE OF DEATH November 19, 1944
Place of death Theresienstadt ghetto