Portrait of Leni Frank, around five years old (photo credit 3.6)
At first the Frank family lived on Leerbachstrasse; with the birth of their second son, they moved to nearby Gärtnerweg; and in 1901, Michael Frank bought the house at Jordanstrasse 4, not far from the Palmengarten. They rented out only the mansard, and Cornelia, Alice’s mother, moved into the third floor.
The house was big enough for everybody; later there was even room for Leni’s and Otto’s families. And surrounding the house was a lovely garden where the children could play. It was easy to find servants who would keep everything spick-and-span: more and more poor girls were flooding the city from the countryside and looking for work from the rich. Alice didn’t have to work; she only gave orders. We can assume that never once in her life did she touch a cleaning rag or dry a plate, and that her daughter, Leni, didn’t either. Leni’s daughter-in-law, Gerti, would later relate: “If there was a stain on the table, Leni would point at it and tell me, ‘Please, wipe it off!’ She would never have done it herself.” Buddy, Leni’s son, said: “My mother could barely boil water for tea.”
The Frank family house, Jordanstrasse 4 (later Mertonstrasse, now Dantestrasse), in Frankfurt (photo credit 3.7)
Happy years followed. How would Alice and Michael have raised their children? No doubt as was typical for the time: Children had to obey, to be seen and not heard, and to bother their parents as little as possible. Proper behavior was the highest goal of child rearing, and was strictly enforced. But no less certainly, a loving, tender relationship between parents and children existed in the Frank family—as is proven by the many surviving letters. There are letters from the children to their parents when the parents went off on another trip, leaving the little ones in the care of their governess, Fräulein Auguste Serg, whom everyone called Fräulein; the cook, Trauda Ullrich; and their grandmother Cornelia. Unlike the names of the maids or serving girls, which were not passed down, the names Auguste Serg and Trauda had a firm place in the family and were never forgotten.
Their children’s education was very important to Michael and Alice. They all had music lessons—Otto played cello, Herbert violin—and naturally they owned a grand piano. There was a Miss to teach them English, a Mademoiselle for French, and Italian lessons too. Leni’s daughter-in-law would later tell stories about how, when the family entertained—for example, at Leni’s famous tea parties—the language spoken at the table would constantly shift according to which guest you were talking to or whether you were giving instructions to the Italian housekeeper.
The children were apparently encouraged quite early to express themselves in writing, without being forced into strict forms, as was common at the time. Not only Robert’s many drawings in his letters show this, but also the early attempts at poetry from all the children. Robert was only eight when he put together these New Year’s rhymes in 1894:
Robert, Otto, Herbert, and Leni Frank, circa 1895–96 (photo credit 3.8)
Dear Parents,
May this year be your happiest yet!
Of children you now have a quartet,
And they should bring you nothing but joy,
May you be happy with each girl and boy.
New Year’s wishes from your eldest.
Alice loved coming up with rhymes and poems for every special occasion, and her children knew, of course, that their mother would be especially pleased with a couplet or poem. Leni, for example, wrote this for her parents for Christmas 1901:
Little Christ child, decorate
The Christmas tree anew,
So every child will know to wait
For a Christmas visit from you.
She must have copied out the poem—it is too polished to have been written by a child of eight—but even so, the beautiful handwriting is striking, and proof that the children were very often encouraged to write.
So the Franks celebrated Christmas. It would be wrong to conclude from this that they were in any way becoming Christian; that was surely not the case. They were not religious at all; they just took every chance to celebrate that offered itself.
At the turn of the century—which, on Kaiser Wilhelm’s orders, was celebrated in Germany on January 1, 1900, a year earlier than everywhere else in the world, which celebrated it on January 1, 1901—Robert sent his mother a postcard illustrating “German Fashion, 1800–1900.” The printed text runs:
Everything in fashion
Always comes around again,
Especially what was prettiest,
What pleases everyone the best.
Robert continued by hand:
But that’s not so important here—
With me and all the rest
You act how you are and will always be
And that’s what pleases me the best.
Christmas poem by Leni, 1901 (photo credit 3.9)
What an enchanting declaration of love from a thirteen-year-old to his mother! Yet we can no longer describe him, the oldest, as a child—he took on responsibility for his younger brothers and sister at an early age, and only three years later he would start to work in an antiques store during his vacations and free time.
The Franks seem to have had a cheerful, companionable family life. Alice was no doubt responsible for that, since she so enjoyed hosting parties—her daughter, Leni, would later say so again and again. In the surviving documents, there are also various pieces of evidence to confirm it: invitations to parties, to Carnival celebrations, to Christmas, to New Year’s, most of them adorned with a little poem. For a costume party where all the guests were to dress up as children, Alice wrote this rhyming invitation:
Mardi Gras should always be merry
So Mr. and Mrs. Frank, to every
One of our friends, extend a hearty
Invite to a jolly party!
And since kids always have most fun—
Babies, schoolboys, every one,
Teenage girls included too—
We would like to ask of you:
Dress as a child, and don’t be late
When Saturday 19th is the date;
RSVP from east and west
To make our Children’s Party the best!
Postcard from Robert Frank to Alice, 1900 (photo credit 3.10)
For the party, Alice dressed her four children in costumes that she described in her black notebook: “blue long pants, checkered vests and skirts, white carnations in the buttonholes, broad red paper top hats.”
There were also parties for the children. One invitation to a party on February 19, 1898, reads:
Peace and calm are virtues, in truth,
Not often practiced by our youth.
But today no squabbles or breaking ranks
At the children’s party at the Franks’.
The celebrations did not only take place in the private sphere. The frequent mention of concerts and plays in Robert’s letters to his parents shows the extent to which even the children took part in the cultural life of the city: “Mademoiselle just left for a concert (Creation)… I’m sending Fräulein to La Traviata tonight with your season ticket, and if you’re not back by Saturday, I’ll let Otto go to Robert and Bertram… Otto and Herbert went to the cinematograph … Tonight the children are off to Joseph and His Brothers, and I’m going to see Tricks of Love and then fetch the children from the opera after the theater gets out.” On one occasion, Robert wrote, “Tonight I’m probably going to see Hamlet, and I’m very much looking forward to it,” and on another: “A Doll’s House is playing at the Playhouse on Saturday. May I use your ticket to go?” Once, after seeing The Robbers with Josef Kainz in the role of Franz Moor, he wrote: “It was a brilliant production, and it was very interesting to observe how the leading actors would gesture and express themselves.” In another letter, he told his parents: “Otto, Herr Böttcher, Fräulein, and Edgar performed two beautiful piano quartets by Beethoven and Mozart here at home last night. It was really very lovely.” And once, when his parents were about to go
to Venice, he reminded them: “Take a good look at the Titians and the other paintings so you can give me a full report.”
Most of the letters from the children are addressed to their mother, who missed them terribly when she was traveling. Their relationship to her seems to have been closer than their relationship with their father. That was not uncommon, when the unquestioned role of the father within the family was more strictly defined as being the authority, which naturally brought with it a certain distance. The father ruled the household, he decided what would or wouldn’t happen, with the mother having more influence on everyday life and smaller concerns.
Still, there is an especially beautiful card that Robert sent his father. It is addressed to “Michael Frank, Esq., London, Hotel Cecil,” and it contains a poem and a drawing of the whole family sitting at their table. The card was signed by everyone, and it says a lot about the domestic life and the free and open manners that must have held sway at the Frank household:
We sit at the table, not too late,
With all the asparagus we just ate
And roast beef, each has cleaned his plate,
And thinks of Father, for whom we wait!
We hope your time in London was great
And that your return will be first-rate,
But enough of this little poem so ornate—
Lots of kisses will land on your pate
From Grandma, Lisel, Robert, Otto, Herbert, Leni.
Best wishes until that date…
Most of the letters come from Robert’s pen. He seems to have taken it upon himself to keep his parents informed about what was happening in the house, perhaps so that they wouldn’t be worried; in any case, he wrote not only about himself but about the others as well. So, for instance, a letter of November 1898 told them about his dance class, then emphasized that all the children could imagine “how much you are enjoying yourselves and we are happy for you with all our hearts. It must be wonderful, the sea before you and the mountains behind you and all the beauty everywhere.” He went on to say that he had had lunch with Grandma, Cornelia, who, whenever anyone asked her how she was doing, said “terrible!!!” but was otherwise “cheerful and merry.” Otto had set up a little store or a lottery and wanted “to make some money.” Another time, Robert reported that Leni had started school “and, unbelievably, wasn’t sick with a cold this time.” He didn’t say much about his own experiences in school, mentioning only once the corporal punishment that was still common at the time: “Nothing special happened in school today, only that our teacher has bought a new cane and already today he broke it in, on two boys.”
School played a much greater role in Otto’s life. He was attending Lessing High School too by that time, and he reported his grades to his parents time and time again: a 3 (B-) in a Latin extemporale, a 1-2 (A-) in German dictation, a 2-3 (B) in Latin, “Good overall” in home ec. His letters were not particularly long and tended to be objective and informative: whether he had had lunch with Grandma or an aunt, or that he had practiced the cello while the Miss listened. Sometimes he also described his outings—where he had ridden the train to, and where he had gone on foot. All in all nothing very intimate or emotional. The very man who would later write such gripping and empathetic letters started off as a child with a much more reserved, even cold, writing style, especially compared with his brother Robert’s letters. Otto’s most entertaining comments were limited to the fact that Leni “didn’t have an accident in her bed” or that there were no “smell events” today and that Grandma had plans to “take a bath today.”
Card from Robert Frank to his father in London, 1902 (photo credit 3.11)
Herbert, the other brother, wrote even less often than Otto, mostly about food, for example: “Today we got soup with too much salt, so we didn’t eat it, a nice leg of venison that was very, very tasty, and the most excellent bread dumplings in the world. Other than that, I don’t know what else to tell you.” Once, he did send his parents a poem:
Happy and healthy as can be
Like jolly fishes in the sea.—
For you I have a little plan:
Bring me some chocolate and marzipan.
From everyone who’s here at home
Much love goes with this little poem.
Your little Bertie who misses you
Sends extra special kisses too.
Leni wrote the least of all the children, no doubt because she was much younger: seven years younger than Robert, four years younger than Otto. In one early letter, she writes to her father: “Herbert always sleeps in your bed and in the morning he comes in and then we play Salesman from Paris. Kisses, your Lener.”
And there is one poem that she sent to her parents when she was ten—the only proof we have that Michael also put rhymes together sometimes:
Dear Mom!
For your postcard a great big thank
From your daughter Leni Frank!
I was happy to get a card from you
And surprised that Daddy makes rhymes too.
He did it well, he deserves high praise.
I think that it’s only a few days
Before you’re back, then you can tell me
If it was nice in Italy? (yes?)
It’s already getting late at night
Soon time for Leni to go right
To her soft bed and fluffy pillow too,
And there she’ll dream sweet dreams of you.
Hugs and kisses, Dad and Mom
From your little daughter here at home.
Alice and Michael were in Italy celebrating the engagement of Arthur Spitzer and Olga Wolfsohn—the same Auntie O. who would later invite everyone, especially Leni and Alice, to her magnificent Villa Laret in Sils-Maria.
Robert commented on this engagement as follows:
J’étais tout à fait baff!!! […] When Leni heard, she said: “Oh, Spitzer? I would have snapped him up too in Olga’s place.” Otto and I are visiting Aunt Rosa and Aunt Karoline, of course, to give our congratulations. When I went to the main post office yesterday to send our telegram and told the man behind the counter that Palanza was in Italy, not South America, he answered: “Yaah, I know. Therr’ve binna tonna telegrams goin there awready t’day. Summ big engagement.”
For the wedding itself, Robert sent a letter saying that they would be celebrating in Frankfurt too: Aunt Rosa, Michael and Rebekka’s sister and the mother of the bride, had invited the whole family. Below his peppy signature, he added a sketch of the bride and groom at the altar that shows the boy’s real artistic talent.
At the time, Robert was working in his spare time and during vacations at Herr Ricard’s antiques store. He was sixteen and already acted very grown-up—as the biggest, the oldest, the role clearly came naturally to him. He must have impressed others as being very mature too, because Herr Ricard was prepared to leave him, the teenager, in charge of the business. Robert wrote to his parents once that Herr Ricard was traveling, and that he, Robert, had much more to do in the store than usual, when Herr Ricard was there. The day before, for example, he had not even had time to eat lunch. Another time: “Yesterday I went with Herr Ricard to see Director Cornill in the museum, to help with the taxes on the paintings.”
Letter from Robert Frank on the wedding of Olga Wolfsohn and
Arthur Spitzer, February 16, 1905 (photo credit 3.12)
In another letter, he wrote:
I’m sitting here in the store after I’ve just seen a photographic apparatus that Herr Ricard plans to buy for photographing objects and paintings. It is a very good machine and I’d be glad to have it. […] I’ve invited a few friends for a billiards contest tonight, and ordered a keg of beer and some sandwiches for it. […] May I permit myself the most humble and obedient question to Mama, if there might be any circumstances in which I could see The Valkyrie with Fräulein [Auguste Serg]? I most patiently and respectfully await your reply.
He is almost grown up—inviting people over, ordering food and drink. Rob
ert was so reliable and his parents put so much trust in him that they traveled even when the house was due to be repainted. Robert took care of everything, as his letter from August 20, 1903, shows:
Dear Parents! The long-awaited workmen are now here! Two huge guys crawling around on ladders in the empty rooms, smearing the ceilings. All the walls are covered with rags and the whole house smells of this pleasant material and a few other things. We men are sleeping upstairs in the guest room, and I slept quite badly in my first night on the guest bed, because it squeaked and meowed all sorts of ways every time I moved a muscle. I dreamed of cats all night long. Now I’ve had them bring my own bed upstairs and I sleep undisturbed. Last night I went to see Talisman, which was a lot of fun. It’s pretty quiet in the store.
Two days later, in his next letter, it already said: “Since Mother asked how things look around here, I can only say ‘frightfully unpleasant.’ Wherever you go, you trip over a workman crawling around on the floor or swinging from a chandelier and now it smells of white, blue, and green paint along with the rotten rags.”
Anne Frank's Family Page 7