Frank Peter Golding (Franz Goldstein) Sarah Saad

Franz Goldstein was born into a traditional Jewish family in Wiesbaden, Germany on 28 April 1920. He was the son of a respected engineer, Dr Phil Georg Goldstein, and Margarete Goldstein Lasker. He had a younger sister, Barbara.

When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, they implemented harsh discriminatory laws against the Jews. In 1936, Franz was forced to leave his secondary school and in 1937 the Jewish Youth Movement known as ‘The Ring’, which Franz headed in Wiesbaden, was forced by the Gestapo to dissolve. As Franz was unable to pursue his dream of studying law, he entered the retail firm L S Mayer as a merchant apprentice.

A few days after the tragic event of Kristallnacht in November 1938, Franz and his Jewish co-workers were rounded up by the Gestapo and taken into custody, solely on the basis of their Jewish background. Soon after, they were sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp. In his diary, Franz describes in detail the scarce food rations, filthy living conditions and sadistic treatment by SS officials.

Franz thought his chances of survival would be better if he volunteered for the Service-troop, where his role was to march and direct other inmates to different locations within the camp. To survive in Buchenwald, prisoners had to purchase food in order to have enough food to stay alive. Food prices were so expensive that Franz described how co-operative societies were formed, in which inmates pooled their resources in order to purchase food to supplement their meagre rations. Also in his diary, Franz depicts the physical structure of the camp in detailed sketches. He describes the long barbed wire fence surrounding the camp and the constant surveillance by SS officers from multiple guard towers. He makes it clear that there was no possibility of escape.

In February 1939, three months after his imprisonment, Franz was released from Buchenwald. His release was made possible not only because he had papers to immigrate to England, but because his parents also paid large sums of money to the Nazi government to ensure that he and Barbara could leave. They were also helped by English friends, Dr and Mrs Kahn, and an English farmer called Patterson who guaranteed Franz a job. In April 1939, Franz left Germany to begin his new life in England. After working on the farm for a short period, Franz decided to join the British Army to help his new country with the war effort. When he entered the army, he changed his name to Frank Peter Golding, so that if he were captured as a prisoner of war, he would not endanger his family who remained in Germany. Frank served in the British Army for seven years as a member of the 8th Hussars Regiment. He was also involved in the army’s War Crimes Investigation Branch. During this time, Frank earned four medals, as well as a citation from Field Marshal Montgomery.

As the situation for Jews in Germany worsened, Margarete wrote to Frank about the new discriminatory laws and told her son that she and her husband were waiting for permits to immigrate to Chile. However, despite paying the Nazi government large sums of money and purchasing the equipment to establish a chemical laboratory in Chile, the government of Chile cancelled their visas, leaving Dr and Mrs Goldstein with no place to flee. Forced to sell their assets at deflated prices, they were slowly stripped of everything they owned. In November 1942, Dr and Mrs Goldstein were transported to Theresienstadt. Dr Goldstein was later taken to Auschwitz where he was murdered. Soon after, Mrs Goldstein was also sent to Auschwitz where it is believed that she too was murdered. Frank’s maternal grandmother, Elise Lasker, died in Theresienstadt.

After the war, Frank returned to Germany, where he learned about the fate of his family. Determined to move on, he decided to enter an agricultural college to pursue his dream of owning a farm. During this time Frank met his future wife, Joyce. They were married in London on 6 August 1949.

In 1950, Frank and Joyce migrated to Victoria, Australia, where Frank found work on a farm. He and Joyce had three children – sons Paul and Peter and daughter Lee. After years of hard work on the land, Frank embarked on a new career running a milk bar and newsagency. Sadly, in March 1975 at the age of 54, Frank passed away from a heart attack. His legacy lives on today through his unforgettable life story and the family members who survive him.