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Eduard Fraenkel... Anyone ever heard of him?

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He merits his own Wikipedia listing (look it up), and famous within his field of expertise...

But here in Calgary I seem to be having my own little historic encounter with him...

Part One:

I acquired a 1939 Switzerland National Exposition postcard, that was mailed to Eduard Fraenkel, by this time teaching at Oxford University (England) after leaving Germany in 1933 (take a wild guess why he left)

This postcard here:

15661371350_cbae06198e_c.jpg


And for proof the back of it, but written in German...

15229068293_092dfd33b3_b.jpg



Okay... Part 2... It gets even stranger...

I purchased the above photo at least two months ago, certainly awhile back... Recently I jumped on a good deal for a set of vintage negatives (ca. mid 1950's) from a different dealer, never noticed at the time until tonight but... There is a 1956 receipt attached to one of the two envelopes, in the name of... Fraenkel, miss E.R., who lived in Oxford! Same family, perhaps Eduard's daughter? Or just simple coincidence? And how both pieces ended up in Calgary, a heck of a long way from Oxford, England, perhaps there is a local family connection here, a relative of Eduard...

And one last photo from those negatives I scanned tonight, the best one of the batch, and there were no people photos in any of them, mostly various scenic...

16004827539_bf00c815e0_z.jpg
 
James - congrats on the find. Every ten years Switzerland has its "National Exhibition", with Swiss communities (each with its own "flag") presenting local products and creations. Just imagine what was going through the minds of the attendees in 1939, with Europe falling apart all around them.

Here's a short NZZ film about the 1939 festival:


By amazing coincidence, look at this illustrated article on the 1939 Exhibition in today's (!) Neue Zuercher Zeitung:

https://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/zuerich/uebersicht/die-doerfli-schweiz-im-roten-zuerich-1.18296461

As the Reich removed "non-Aryans" from university faculties, Professor Fraenkel left Germany in search of work. So maddening that wisdom and skills can be forced out for political reasons; when wisdom and skills leave, all society is weakened.
 
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