Hartog Frank was the youngest son of Levie Frank and Henderina Cohen. He was born on 29 May 1908 in Rotterdam and was employed there as a managing clerk. He married in Rotterdam on 2 March 1934 to the Polish Estera Laja Icowicz from Wieruszow, a daughter of Abe Wolf Ickowicz and Chene Schmulewiecz. The couple had one son, Louis Salomon Frank, who was born in Rotterdam on 9 June 1935.
Hartog’s wife Estera Laja arrived in Rotterdam on 25 January 1930 but her brother, Abraham Lajp (or Lijb) arrived there already on 5 October 1929. He was tailor by trade and found lodging then in the Aert van Nessstraat 86a. But on 30 April 1930 he moved to Schiekade 177a, were his sister Estera lived previously. Because of her marriage to Hartog Frank, she moved then to Schieweg 201b. But already one year later, on 20 April 1936 Abraham Lijb Ickowicz left Schiekade 177a in Rotterdam for Burgemeester de Kievitstraat 56 in Diemen.
Up from 1 February 1930, Hartog Frank lived in the Aleidisstraat 93a, moved 12 December 1932 to a lodging at Kruisstraat 18a but after he married Estera Laja Ickowicz, they moved together into a house at Schiekade 201b, where later in 1935 their son Louis Salomon was born.
From Municipal listings of Rotterdam it has appeared that the Hartog Frank family in April 1942 still lived at this previously mentioned address. On 28 July 1942, they were obligatory registered by the Jewish Council in Rotterdam, but most likely, the family did not wait to be deported through Westerbork to the East and therefore has made efforts to escape via Belgium to safer places.
However, that escape soon turned out to have failed; in Belgium the family was arrested and on 15 August 1942 deported from Mechelen to Auschwitz with Convoy III (3). On arrival there Estera Laja Frank-Ickowicz and her son Louis Salomon Frank were immediately killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau on 17 August 1942
Hartog Frank, on the other hand, was one of the 362 “lucky ones” of the transport, who were not immediately killed in the gas chambers upon arrival, but were enrolled in the camp, where they were deployed as forced labourers. The “Sterbebücher” (death records) of Auschwitz showed that Hartog Frank has been killed there on 11 September 1942.
Sources include the City Archive of Rotterdam, family registration cars of Levie Frank, Hartog Frank, Estera Laja Ickowicz, Abraham Lajp Ickowics; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Hartog Frank, Estera Laja Frank-Ickowicz and Louis Salomon Frank; the Memorial of the Deportation of the Belgian Jews, page 21 and 22 and the website Memorial & Museum Auschwitz Birkenau/database Auschwitz prisoners/Hartog Frank.