Franz Theodor Cohn

Franz lives with his parents, Margot and Fritz, and his older sisters, Hanna and Hildegard, in a large flat on the Kaßberg. Margot’s passion is playing the piano, which she also teaches to Franz. Fritz has a PhD in law and enjoys playing the violin. Together they attend events organised by the Jewish community. Franz plays football for a Jewish sports club and is fascinated by electronic processes. At the age of nine, he builds a microphone with the intention of eavesdropping on his parents.

One of his most painful experiences, as he later described it, was his best friend joining the Hitler Youth. Shortly afterwards, in February 1938, he was expelled from the Latin grammar school. His mother then hired a private English tutor until Franz moved to a boarding school in Berlin in December 1938.

On 16 January 1939, he fled Berlin for Sweden on a Kindertransport. In Sassnitz on Rügen, the children were subjected to a strict inspection. Franz’s sisters managed to flee to Argentina and England, whilst his parents fled to Asker near Oslo.

Franz attended a Swedish school. In the summer of 1939 and during the Easter holidays of 1940, he visited his parents in Norway, but returned to Sweden. They kept in touch by letter. He received the last news from his parents in November 1942, just as their deportation was imminent – a fate Franz was unable to prevent from Sweden. Just days later, Margot and Fritz Cohn are deported to Auschwitz and murdered.

Franz Cohn passes an examination as an engineer in telecommunications at the Stockholm Institute of Technology, completes military service in a radio workshop and eventually sets up his own business as an entrepreneur in high technology. On 14 November 1948, he married his wife Eva in Stockholm’s largest synagogue. In his biography, he writes: “When I look at our three children and seven grandchildren […] I feel a great sense of happiness. That is how we defeated Hitler.”