Nathan Frank was a son of Hartog Frank and Mietje Smeer. He married in Amsterdam on 17 August 1916 Vrouwtje Pront, a daughter of Leendert Pront and Elisabeth Arbeid. The couple had two children, namely Elizabeth, born 28 May 1917 and Mietje on 28 May 1921.
After his wedding in 1916 Nathan lived with his spouse Vrouwtje Pront at Tweede Oosterparkstraat 31 in Amsterdam-East. Nathan was a casual labourer but was also selling trade as street market vendor on street markets: up from 1 January 1924 he sold stockings and socks on the market at Waterlooplein and up from March on the Westermarkt. Half November 1924 he left for Antwerp for a few months as diamond polisher but returned to Amsterdam in February 1925, presumably with little success. At the end of June 1926 the family moved to Snoekjesgracht and per 25 June 1935 they lived at Nieuwe Uilenburgerstraat 12 1st storey.
Both the children from Nathan and Vrouwtje, Elizabeth and Mietje married in 1939 and in 1942; Elizabeth married Hartog Prins on 2 Augustg 1939; they were both killed in the Shoah. Mietje married 8 April 1942 Simon de Vries, who lost his life in Monowitz. Mietje however, part of the Philips Command, survived the Holocaust and returned from Sweden to Amsterdam in August 1945.
Nathan Frank and Vrouwtje Pront were both carried off on 1 October 1942 to Westerbork, from where they were put on transport to Auschwitz already the next day, 2 October 1942. Upon arrival in Auschwitz on 5 October 1942, Vrouwtje Frank-Pront was immediately killed in the gas chambers there. Her husband Nathan Frank had to leave the train already earlier in Kozel.
The transport of 16 October 1942 was one of the so-called Kozel transports and contained more than 1000 deportees. The train stopped at Kozel, a place located ±80 km west from Auschwitz, where 160 boys and men between 15 and 50 years of age were forced to leave the train. They were deployed as forced labourers in the surrounding labor camps of Auschwitz. However, those, who remained in the train were transported onwards to Auschwitz to be killed there in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau, among those also Vrouwtje Frank-Pront.
Nathan Frank belonged to the group of 160 persons, who had to leave the train and ended up as forced laborer in the “Reichs Autobahnlager” Annaberg in Upper Silesia in Poland. After the war, it was known that Nathan Frank had not survived the Holocaust, but it was not known where and when and under what circumstances. Therefore on order of the Ministry of Justice after the war, a certificate of death was drawn up in the municipality of Amsterdam for Nathan Frank, in which his place and date of death were established as in Schoppinitz on 31 March 1943.
However, in 2015, research was carried out in Poland to victims of among others the labor camp “Reichsautobahnlager Annaberg” in Upper Silesia where several certificates of death were found, including those of Nathan Frank. This document shows that Nathan Frank died already 11 December 1942 in camp Annaberg. On the death certificate is mentioned as cause of death “gangrene and general body weakness” (Gangraen und allgemeine Körperschwäche).
By establishing the date of death of Nathan Frank, the official Dutch date of death and place of 31 March 1943 in Schoppinitz is maintained, a juridical date established after the war by the Dutch Department of Justice.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Nathan Frank, archive cards of Nathan Frank, Vrouwthe Pront, Hartog Prins and Elizabeth Frank, certificate of birth 6189 of 29 May 1917 for Elizabeth Frank, Certificate of death Amsterdam for Nathan Frank, Reg.A90-fol.343v, deed nr.249 dated 13 Dec 1951; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Nathan Frank and Vrouwtje Frank-Pont, Mietje Frank, Elizabeth Frank and Hartog Prins; Wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland and Edward Haduch, Kedzierzyn-Lozle (Poland), the death certificate of Nathan Frank from the Peoples Registry (Standesamt) Annaberg.