Running for her life

Françoise Frenkel was a Polish Jew, who adored books and spent much of her early life studying and working in Paris. Her passion for French literature led her to open the first French bookshop in Berlin in 1921, a resounding success in spite of the predominantly Francophobe sentiment in Germany following the first world war. She happily reminisces over its ‘curiously mixed clientele’: ‘Famous artists, celebrities and well-heeled women pore over the fashion magazines, speaking in hushed tones so as not to disturb the philosopher buried in his Pascal.’ It soon became a place of readings, lectures, plays and parties and an essential stop for any French writer passing through Berlin.

The problems began in 1935, escalating from laborious new customs paperwork to Frenkel being summoned by the Gestapo, although the bookshop was spared the atrocity of Kristallnacht as it was a foreign business. Unsurprisingly, Frenkel was unable to sell the shop, so in August 1939 she paid off her debts and fled to Paris, where the cultural attaché praised her for ‘remaining at your post until the very last minute.