First Person With Frank Liebermann

Wed 3 Aug, 1-2 pm. 100 Rauol Wallenberg Place, SW, Washington, D.C., 20024-2126. Andrea Lewis, 202-314-7810, alewis@ushmm.org. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - [events]

August 3, 2011 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM PLACE Helena Rubinstein Auditorium, Museum First Person is a program for the public featuring a series of conversations with Holocaust survivors. These eyewitness accounts unite personal experience with history in a way that is extraordinary in its immediacy and power. Each hour-long program is presented as a live interview with an opportunity for the audience to ask questions. are asked to remain seated for the entire hour-long program to minimize disruptions for the speaker.

The First Person guest speaker on August 3, 2011 is Holocuast survivor, Frank Liebermann. Frank was the only child of Hans and Lotte Liebermann. Frank and his family lived in an industrial town near the borders of Poland and Czechoslovakia. Hans was a prominent surgeon in the city, and was able to provide well for his family. The family lived a comfortable middle class existence. Both of Frank’s parent’s families had lived in the area for several generations.

By 1933 German public schools separated Jewish and non-Jewish students. When Frank started school in 1935 the Jewish students were allotted three small classrooms. The Jewish students were dismissed five minutes early and advised to rush home as anti-Semitic attacks by other students became frequent after school.

In 1936 rapid changes caused by anti-Jewish laws took place in Gleiwitz. Hans lost his hospital privileges, was no longer allowed to accept insurance payments, and, thus, could no longer make a living. Playgrounds, swimming pools and other venues were closed to Frank and other Jews. It was an extremely difficult time for Jewish families in Gleiwitz and the rest of Germany.

Hans traveled to the U.S. in 1938 to obtain immigration papers. With the help of a cousin Hans received an affidavit that allowed the Liebermanns to be placed on a waiting list for visas. He returned to Lotte and Frank in Gleiwitz to wait for the visas.

The visas were issued in June 1938. Hans traveled to the U.S. immediately to begin preparing for the Ohio State Medical Board Examination. Frank and Lotte stayed behind to settle household affairs. They were able to purchase tickets for a ship bound for the United States and departed Germany on October 13, 1938, less than a month before Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass.”

The Liebermann family decided to settle in Ohio because it was not as difficult for Hans to obtain a medical license there as in some states. He passed the Ohio State Medical Board Examination and set up a medical practice in Dayton. Frank graduated from Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University) in 1950 with a degree in Chemistry.

Frank now works as a travel agent and volunteers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.