Author picture
2 Works 500 Members 28 Reviews 1 Favorited

About the Author

Works by Françoise Frenkel

Tagged

Common Knowledge

Canonical name
Frenkel, Françoise
Birthdate
1889-07-14
Date of death
1975-01-18
Burial location
Nice, France
Gender
female
Nationality
France
Birthplace
Lodz, Poland
Place of death
Nice, France
Places of residence
Berlin, Allemagne
Nice, France
Education
Sorbonne, Paris, France
Occupations
libraire
bookseller
autobiographer
Holocaust survivor
Short biography
épouse de Simon Raichenstein.
Juive polonaise, tient une librairie française à Berlin, rentre en France en juillet 1939. Se cache en France jusqu'à passer en Suisse. Publie un livre racontant ces événements tout de suite après la guerre. Ce livre a été redécouvert et publié en 2015 par Gallimard.

Françoise Frenkel was born Frymeta Idesa Frenkel in Lodz, Poland, to a Jewish family. She studied music in Leipzig and French literature in Paris. After earning a doctorate at the Sorbonne, she founded the first French bookshop in Berlin in 1921 with her husband Simon Raichenstein. She organized lectures by French authors visiting Berlin, including André Gide, Colette, André Marois, and Aristide Briand. Following the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany in 1933, Rachenstein fled to Paris, while Françoise remained in Berlin until a month before the outbreak of World War II in 1939. She went to Paris, but it's not known whether she was reunited with her husband, who was arrested in 1942, sent to the Drancy detention camp, and deported to Auschwitz, where he was killed. When Germany invaded France in 1940, Françoise hid from the Nazis for two years. She was arrested and imprisoned while attempting to cross the border from France into Switzerland, and finally managed to escape to Switzerland in 1943. There she wrote the autobiographical Rien où poser sa tête (No Place to Lay Her Head), published in 1945 in Geneva. She returned to France after the war and died in Nice in 1975. Her book received little notice until a copy was found in an attic in southern France in 2010, and republished by Gallimard in 2015 with a preface by Nobel Prize-winning author Patrick Modiano.

Members

Reviews

Francoise Frenkel's memoir, first published in French in 1945, was recently rediscovered and translated into English. In it, she recounts how she started the first French literature bookstore in Berlin, but then had to flee after Kristallnacht. Her bookshop is not destroyed, but because of her Polish Jewish heritage, she knows her life is in danger and she returns to France as a refugee.

The French title of this book translates to "No place to lay one's head", which is a more accurate representation of the contents than the English title. Only chapter 1 really told you about the bookshop, which was Frenkel's dream, and which she ran from 1921 to her leaving in 1938. The rest is about her life in France from 1939 and through the German occupation, showing how her life grows more and more restricted. Though the threat of deportation is always present, her day-to-day life is at times rather boring. And yet, she manages to convey a generally positive attitude and love for French people and literature, despite the way she's treated as a refugee by the government and some of the townspeople. In fact, she's much more forgiving of their human foibles than I would be. Many books have been written about the awful events in World War 2, but it's still powerful to read a memoir about it, especially one written so close to her experiences.… (more)
½
1 vote
Flagged
bell7 | 27 other reviews | Jul 26, 2024 |
For a story about the Second World War I found this very dispassionate and dull.
 
Flagged
alans | 27 other reviews | May 3, 2024 |
The first title of this book was "No Place to Lay One's Head." That is a more apt title than "A Bookshop in Berlin" since very little of the book pertains to a bookshop in Berlin. It was an okay read about persecution during WWII, but there is really nothing new here that has not been in other WWII memoirs.
 
Flagged
Kimberlyhi | 27 other reviews | Apr 15, 2023 |
Writing: 4.0; Theme: 5.0; Content: 5.0; Language: 5.0; Overall: 4.0

This an amazing story of a Jewish woman- Francoise Frenkel- who fulfills her dream of opening up a book store in France. As Nazi ideology passes through Europe, police visits and confiscations begin to increase at Frenkel's place of business. Her book store is soon destroyed, as well as many other Jewish-owned businesses experienced, during the destruction of the evil of German tyranny. This book was actually published in 1945 and left in an attic until somewhat recently. Recommend.

***March 10, 2023***
… (more)
 
Flagged
jntjesussaves | 27 other reviews | Mar 12, 2023 |

Lists

Awards

You May Also Like

Associated Authors

Elisabeth Edl Translator
Ulla Bruncrona Translator
Marianne Kaas Translator
Stephanie Smee Translator
Frederic Maria Contributor

Statistics

Works
2
Members
500
Popularity
#49,493
Rating
½ 3.7
Reviews
28
ISBNs
33
Languages
10
Favorited
1

Charts & Graphs