Museum Foundation Post and Telecommunications hands over book to Jewish Museum Frankfurt
On Tuesday, April 20, at 7 p.m., the official handover event with a talk will now take place.
Since 2015, the Museum Foundation Post and Telecommunication has been conducting provenance research in its collection holdings. From 2018 to 2020, provenance researcher Peter Hirschmiller examined the collection for cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution. In the process, he came across the "Handlungs-Addreß-Kalender von Frankfurt (Main) auf das Jahr 1807." This includes not only the addresses of the various Frankfurt trading companies, but also information about market times and Jewish holidays, postal and courier routes or postage prices. An elaborate bookplate on the inside cover identified the book as belonging to the Jewish Frankfurt judicial councilor Dr Ludwig Heilbrunn. Heilbrunn was also a politician, author, and patron of the arts, and played an important role in Frankfurt's social life.
After the November pogrom in 1938, he had managed to escape to Great Britain at the age of almost 70, where he lived isolated and impoverished. The family's real estate was forcibly sold in 1938/39, and parts of Ludwig Heilbrunn's valuable private library were also lost. "I myself live as a beggar in London," Heilbrunn wrote to his son Rudolf in 1945. He returned to Germany in 1949, but did not move back to Frankfurt until the end of his life in 1951.
During efforts to restitute the calendar and search for possible heirs, it turned out that both of Heilbrunn's sons, Rudolf and Robert, had emigrated in 1939. While Robert escaped to the USA and remained there, Rudolf returned to the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1960s and lived in Kaiserslautern until his death in 1998. He remained childless and bequeathed his family archive and parts of his library to the Jewish Museum Frankfurt. In March 2021, the calendar was therefore also given to the Jewish Museum Frankfurt.
On the occasion of Rudolf M. Heilbrunn's 120th birthday, "An Evening for Rudolf Heilbrunn" will be held at the Jewish Museum on Tuesday, April 20, 7 pm. The public conversation with provenance researcher Peter Hirschmiller, the Jewish Museum's Custodian of Contemporary History Heike Drummer and Dr Corinna Engel, Head of Public Relations at the Museum of Communication Frankfurt, will be livestreamed:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMdrqje89lk