Jacob Frank was the second of the six children of Levie Frank and Henderina Cohen, born in the 1e Pijnakkerstraat 105a in Rotterdam on 15 June 1900. He was an office clerk by profession and on 11 November 1925 he got married in Rotterdam to Marianna Rebekka Florina de Leeuw, who was born on 31 January 1904 in Rotterdam as daughter of Salomon de Leeuw and Klara Brest. She was the sister of Betje de Leeuw, who was married to Jacob’s brother Nathan.
Jacob and Marianna had four children, namely Louis in 1926 (usually called Lou), Hendrina Klara in 1927, Klara in 1931 and Branca in 1934. Louis however was taken in on 14 September 1935 in the Rudelsheim Foundation at Verdilaan 10 in Hilversum, where he stayed about 9 months. On 9 July 1936 he came home again, living with his parents and sisters. However, Louis passed away already at the age of 12 on 24 September 1938 in Rotterdam and Lou was interred in the Jewish Cemetery Toepad.
When Jacob Frank got married in 1925, his wife Marianna de Leeuw moved in with him at the Schiebroeksestraat 19a. Jacob then lived still at home with his parents. However, his mother passed away on 2 April 1926, as a result of which Jacob's siblings had to move elsewhere, because his father Levie Frank, now widower, should also be cared for elsewhere.
Also Jacob and Marianna were looking for living space elsewhere and found a house at the Gedempte Binnenrotte 84, moved 24 February 1928 to the Hugo Molenaarstraat 14a, then on 31 January 1930 to Aleidisstraat 93a but finally they ended up in the Buitenhofstraat 33b in the district Het Nieuwe Westen (The New West), after still having moved once more before to the Van Weelstraat 53, which was located in the same district in Rotterdam-West.
Jacob Frank was sent on 15 July 1942 as a Jewish forced labourer to the labor camp Linde near Zuidwolde in the province of Drenthe. But in August 1942, a large part of the Jewish forced labourers were sent from camp Linde to Westerbork. The rest followed in the night of 2 to 3 October 1942, when all Jewish labor camps were liquidated by the Germans. Jacob Frank was sent to Westerbork from camp Linde on 7 August 1942.
Notes on the registration card from the Jewish Council archive of Marianna de Leeuw show that on 31 July 1942, “her deportation was postponed”, which of course also applied to her three daughters. It is very likely that this “postponement from deportation” was meant for the so-called “family-reunion” where mothers and children were re-united with the father of the family, who arrived in Westerbork from a Jewish labor camp, to then be deported together to the East.
On 24 August 1942 Jacob Frank, his wife Marianna Rebekka Florina de Leeuw and their daughters Hendrina Klara, Klara and Branca were put on transport from Westerbork to Auschwitz. This transport contained “only” 519 deportees, who on arrival there were still selected for work capacity. But mothers with children usually were sent immediately to the gas chambers and that was also the fate that befell Marianna and her daughters Hendrina, Klara and Branca; after arriving in Auschwitz on 26 August 1942, they were immediately killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
On arrival in Auschwitz on 26 August 1942, Jacob Frank was selected to be deployed as forced labourer there. However, it is not known under which circumstances and exactly when Jacob lost his life in Auschwitz. Therefore, after the war, the Dutch Ministry of Justice orderd the Municipality of Rotterdam to draw up a certificate of death for Jacob Frank, in which has been established that he has died in Auschwitz on 30 September 1942.
Sources include the City Archive of Rotterdam, family registration card of Jacob Frank, the certificate of death nr. 3673, 1938-folio c128 dated 27 Sept 1938 for Louis (Lou) Frank; website hetstenenarchief.nl/grave Lou Frank; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Jacob Frank, Marianna R.F. Frank-de Leeuw and the children Hendrina Klara, Klara and Branca de Leeuw; the Wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl and the certificate of death 1950V3-114verso, nr. 3018 datded 6 October 1950 from Rotterdam for Jacob Frank.