URSPRINGEN · A DOCUMENT AND ITS AFTERLIFE
The tree that
kept the names
Clemens Frankel’s 1927 family tree survived in several copies. Their differences helped later researchers find what one version had left out.
See the authentic 1927 tree and a closer detail in Martin Frankel’s Part I, pages 53–54.
View the source bookAt the foot of the tree is Urspringen. Above the village, family names spread along the branches. Clemens was a landscape painter, but the people in this drawing were his own relatives. He was born in Frankfurt in 1872 to David and Hedwig Frankel, both connected to the Urspringen family. [1] [2]
01 / READING THE COPIES
A missing name,
on another branch
Martin Frankel used the tree as the starting document for his family research. He valued its accuracy, while recognizing its limits: only five dates appeared on it, and children who had died young were omitted. He did not know who had commissioned it, or whether Clemens had compiled all the information himself. [1] [3]
Several copies were made. The Urspringen Synagogue Association says examples survived among different branches of the family. Martin’s account shows why that mattered. [4]
His copy showed a daughter called Carry beneath Moses and Jeanette Frankel, beside two branches without names. When he visited Hiltrud and Berthold Greenhut in 1997, their copy also named Emma. Martin thought their version might have been produced slightly later. [3]
A comparison between two copies had recovered a name. It also showed why even a carefully drawn family tree needed to be read alongside other evidence.
See the authentic 1927 tree and a closer detail in Martin Frankel’s Part I, pages 53–54.
View the source book02 / THE FAMILY CONNECTION
Where Marianne fits
Clemens and Marianne Frankel, who married Moses Elkan, shared a great-grandfather: Nathan Faust Frankel. On the paternal lines shown below, they were second cousins. This relationship is calculated from the book’s stated parent-child connections. [2]
Nathan Faust Frankel
MARIANNE’S LINE
- Faust Nathan Frankel
- Salomon Frankel
- Marianne Frankel Wife of Moses Elkan
CLEMENS’S LINE
- Aron Nathan Frankel
- David Frankel
- Clemens Frankel Artist of the 1927 tree
Selected paternal paths, not the complete pedigree. Hedwig’s Frankel ancestry supplies a separate family connection.
More than one route back
In 1996, Martin’s inquiries through the Kissinger genealogy led him to word of another copy: Fred Stern in New York had written that he possessed a Frankel family tree from 1927. [5]
A 2015 article, reproduced in Martin’s book, reported that the Urspringen Synagogue Association had found a copy in the Swiss Association for Jewish Genealogy’s holdings at Zurich’s municipal archives. This was another surviving copy coming to light. The precise archival reference still needs verification. [6]
Clemens was murdered in the Holocaust. His tree survived in relatives’ hands and, later, in historical collections. It gave subsequent researchers somewhere to begin: names to recognize, relationships to test, and gaps to investigate. [2] [6]
03 / SOURCES AND FURTHER READING
Reading the evidence
The narrative follows Martin Frankel’s family histories. The source book reproduces the authentic tree and a detail on pages 53–54. The illustrations are available through the source-book links below.
- Document and detail. Martin Frankel, The Frankels of Urspringen, Volume 1, version 2.0, November 2016, pp. 52–54. Page 52 describes the tree’s use and limits; pp. 53–54 reproduce the full tree and detail.
- The relationship to Marianne. Volume 1, pp. 120, 130–132, 146; Volume 2, version 1.0, July 2017, p. 99. These passages identify Aron as Nathan’s son, David as Aron’s son, Clemens as David and Hedwig’s son, and Marianne’s line through Faust and Salomon. Volume 2, pp. 44–45 identifies Marianne’s marriage to Moses Elkan. Clemens’s Holocaust death is reported on p. 99.
- What the copies could add. Volume 2, p. 32, gives Martin’s account of the 1997 Greenhut visit and the additional name Emma; p. 99 records his uncertainty about who compiled the tree’s data. The later production date of the Greenhut copy is Martin’s suggestion, not an established date.
- Institutional corroboration. Urspringen Synagogue Association, Jewish families, section on Clemens and Martin Fränkel, checked 16 October 2026. The association describes multiple copies and their survival with different family branches.
- The New York lead. Volume 2, pp. 42–43. Martin recounts learning of Fred Stern’s copy through Elizabeth Levy.
- The Zurich account and Clemens’s fate. Volume 2, pp. 170–173: Martin Frankel’s edited English rendering of Martin Harth’s article dated 27 January 2015. The Zurich discovery is attributed to that account; no archive shelfmark is claimed. The detailed deportation reconstruction and exact death date are omitted.