While held in the Buchenwald concentration camp, Rabbi Franz (Frank) Rosenthal set up a small medical clinic. One day, as he was caring for a man suffering from pneumonia, he was summoned over the loudspeaker. He was going to either die or be set free, so he gave the stranger his clothes off his back to keep him warm, leaving himself nearly naked.
A year later, Rosenthal was on a boat to America and spilled soup all over himself. A strange man approached him and offered him a new suit, which he accepted, soon realizing that it was, by coincidence, the same man he had helped in the camp.
“The man who gave my grandfather’s suit was the same man that my grandfather gave his clothes to a year earlier and saved his life by keeping him warm,” said his granddaughter Faye Zemel, who is named after him. “Remarkable story. My grandfather was a storyteller, and he used his stories to teach his congregation.”
Following in his footsteps, Zemel does the same, telling her grandfather’s story to school children in Wisconsin as part of the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center Speakers Bureau.
“I do this because I want to raise awareness about antisemitism, and that Jews exist and that we are vibrant people,” said Zemel, the mother of two children, who works as a director of services at a domestic abuse intervention organization.
Her presentation centers around the vibrant life her grandfather lived. He was born in 1911 in Beuthen, Germany, which is now Bytom, Poland. Rosenthal, who was one of the last rabbis to be ordained in Germany before the Holocaust, was arrested on Kristallnacht and taken to Buchenwald where he remained for two months before he was released.
He escaped Europe and arrived in the United States in 1939. Rabbi Rosenthal served as the Rabbi at Temple Anshe Shalom in Olympia Fields, Illinois, where he remained until he passed away in August of 1979.
“When somebody survives something like that, at least for my grandfather, he wanted to make sure that nobody ever had to experience anything like that again,” she said. “So, he devoted his career to interfaith relationships and building coalitions and organizing.”
In the 1960s, the house of an African American doctor who lived across the street from the synagogue, was burned down by a racist group. Rosenthal stepped in and created a neighborhood watch so the doctor and his family would be protected and prevent another attack.
“He really used his pulpit to advocate for marginalized communities,” she said.
Zemel has told the story of her grandfather to about 10 groups of students, some in rural parts of Wisconsin, where there are not many Jews.
“Whenever I’m in front of a group of students telling my grandfather’s story, I always start by saying ‘the stories you are going hear are miraculous,’” Zemel said. “Most people in the Holocaust did not make it. The stories of the survivors are miraculous, because they survived and it was not the norm.”
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