Paul Frankel Died

A 93-year-old friend of my family’s died recently. His death was expected and to some extent a relief. He had spent the past five years or so in a difficult state. However, he was a Holocaust survivor and his story needs to be repeated and not forgotten. Paul lived to age 16 in Transylvania, Romania of Dracula fame. His father was a doctor and he lived with his mother, father, and brother. When the Nazis came to town, they kidnapped all of the Jewish residents and sent them off to Auschwitz. Paul’s father and mother were killed there. Paul and his brother were shuttled around to a variety of concentration camps and ended up escaping the Nazis during a transfer. Neither knew the other had escaped and they eventually reconnected in the United States after the war. Paul ran a successful dairy business servicing the US Military for much of my youth. He was a large serious fellow with a loving family and always a handful of dogs around and opera playing in the living room. Paul liked messing around with lawyers and was very supportive of me as a young lawyer. He will be missed, but sadly, his formative teen years and the awful circumstances of the Holocaust to some extent transcend him as a person and make him a symbol for all right-thinking people to remember that there is evil out there in the world.