Foto von Otto Frank, Vater von Anne Frank, der in einer Wiese steht

Research at the Frank Family Center

To promote and support research and publish research findings: the Family Frank Center aims to contribute to consolidating research into family estates as a source of Jewish historiography.

The extensive estates of the Frank-Elias family and their ancestors enable an examination of the German-Jewish middle class in the 19th and early 20th centuries at a family-related level. As well as focusing on the Franks themselves, they provide insight into the cultural and social life of the Frankfurt middle classes, on gender roles, affiliations and presentations as well as the bourgeois understanding of family, childhood and youth. It is also possible to trace the transnational trade connections of many Jewish families in Frankfurt using the history of the Frank family as an example. Further themes in the sources extend from experiences in the  World War I and the consequences of flight, persecution, and dispersal to surviving the Holocaust (Shoah) and initiating a process of remembrance.

Buddy Elias, at the opening of the Frank Family Centrer on February 28, 2012

"We carry the responsibility that future generations (…) can move forward in peace, with the knowledge of a just society and an awareness of the past. The diary of Anne Frank, and Otto Frank's last will, teach us nothing less."

Frank Family History as a German-French Family Biography

Photo of the children from the German and French stirps of the family of Anne Frank, 1898
Photo of the children from the German and French stirps of the family of Anne Frank, 1898 © Anne Frank Fonds Basel

The Anne Frank Fonds supports a current dissertation projectthat examines the history of the family branches outside Frankfurt and the related families of Schuster, Wolfsohn, and Spitzer. Carl-Eric Linsler’s study focuses on family connections, especially the transnational network and their cosmopolitan lifestyles against a backdrop of rising nationalism and German-French tensions in the 19th and 20th centuries. You can learn more about Linsler’s project in the current research report.

Carl-Eric Linsler is currently working toward his doctorate at the Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University Berlin. His supervisor is Prof. Dr. Stefanie Schüler-Springorum.

On-site Research

With the opening of the new building, new spaces for research work in the  Jewish Museum library will become available, where it will be possible to access the digital archives and collection holdings of the Family Frank Center.

The Family Frank Center supports research into the Frank, Elias and Stern families and related questions. In collaboration with the Stiftung Zeitlehren the Center promotes research on specific themes using the holdings of the Frank Family Center within the framework of a promotional program. Expert advice will be offered as well as financial support and access to the collection. The research findings from the Fellowship Program will be made available in a series of publications by the Frank Family Center and in the context of the event and exhibition formats of the Jewish Museum.

The call for applications will be made soon and will be publizised through the platforms of the Jewish Museum and the H-Soz-Kult.