Franziska (Landsberger) Oberländer (1921 - 2017)

Born 10 Nov 1921 in Frydek, Silesia

Ancestors

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Biography

Franziska (Franzi) is the youngest daughter of Oskar Landsberger and Jana Behrendt of Frydek, Silesia. She left Czechoslovakia during WW II and after a lot of travelling ended up living in Israel.

She was active in the Zionist youth union "Blau-Weiss"^[1] and in 1940 managed to board a transport to Palestine. Instead of entering Palestine the passengers of three "illegal" ships were moved by the British to the SS Patria in the port of Haifa, for a forced emigration to Mauritius. The Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah decided to disable the ship by planting a bomb. On 25 November 1940, this resulted in the killing of 267 people and injuring 172. The surviving refugees were taken to the Atlit detainee camp. Later, after an international campaign, the survivors of Patria were given permits to stay in Palestine.^[2]

It took over two years and much effort by Benno Landsberger in Ankara and his colleague Kraus before two boxes and one suitcase belonging to Franzi reached her in Palestine.^[3]

It's thanks to Frantzi that Yad Vashem was able to make pages of testimony for her mother Jana and sister Mitzie who both died in Auschwitz in September 1942. Also for her grandmother Sophie Herz such testimony was arranged by Franzi.

During WWII Franzi married Oscar Wiesner, a Czech soldier. They were married about one year but hardly saw each other as he went back to Europe during the war. They were divorced by mail.

In 1950 Franzi married David Oberlander. They had two children.

Sources

1. ↑ “Blau Weiss” was a German-Jewish youth movement that was founded in 1912. The first branches were founded in cities across Germany, and later also in Austria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Towards the end of the First World War, the movement comprised about 3000 members. The purpose of the movement was to prepare its members for emigration to Palestine. in 1922, a separate, girls-only movement was established.
2. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patria_disaster
3. ↑ Luděk Vacín, The Unknown Benno Landsberger - A Biographical Sketch of an Assyriological Altmeister's Development, Exile, and Personal Life. In collaboration with Jitka Sýkorová, Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2018, ISBN 978-3-447-11124-9

See also:

• http://db.yadvashem.org/
• family archives