The British Messianic Jewish Alliance

The Life and Work of Pastor Dr Arnold Frank (part 2)

John During 

On 6th March 1965 Pastor Dr Arnold Frank celebrated his 106th birthday in good health. The next day he became ill and on 20th March his Saviour took him to glory.

His home-going was an infinitely great loss for countless people in all parts of the world. Through him, I too came to faith in Jesus and through him I received baptism in the Jerusalem Church on 15th January 1928 .

My loss is especially great as I lost not only my spiritual father and fatherly friend, but also the best advisor in the ministry of God's Word. He wrote to me regularly up into a great age, encouraged me in the work.”

            This article was translated by the daughter of one of Dr Frank's fifty protégées who became ministers and missionaries. Rev. S. Walter Rothschild was both a pastor and a missionary. Ordained by the FIEC after only a few years in England , he served as the minister of several churches in England and New Zealand before receiving a call in 1953 to help the German churches, who felt they could not lift up their eyes, let alone present the Gospel, to the Jewish people around them. To those who knew him, his return to Germany , where he would no longer find close relatives save his sister, seemed an act of great courage, but to Walter Rothschild it was an honour to be able to show forgiveness as he had received it from Jesus. His preaching and conversations enabled ex-SS officers to find the forgiveness of Jesus, Christians to shoulder their callings in the same light and, through his visits to their Jewish contacts, to give many the confidence to accept a New Testament prefaced with the prophecies of the Messiah's coming.

            Dr Frank's role in Walter's life was very great. As a lad of 14, Walter was horrified to find that his mother had, during a spell in a Lutheran hospital, become a Christian. As the only male in the family (his father died in combat in 1914) he felt he had to act and did so by leaving home in protest and going to live with an uncle and aunt. For three years he ignored his mother and her letters but finally, receiving a small package, his curiosity got the better of him. Inside was the Gospel of John. Walter read this secretly, believed what he read and asked Jesus Christ to be his Lord. It did not take his aunt long to discover the book under his pillow, whereupon he was sent packing and returned to his mother, whose rejoicing is not difficult to imagine. Now a Christian friend of his mother's knew of Dr Frank's work in Hamburg and suggested sending Walter there so that he might learn much more.

            “Pastor Dr Frank” was strict but greatly revered and Walter gratefully received a thorough grounding in the Scriptures. At the Jerusalem Church he met Mary and, much in love, they married very young and chose to make their own way instead of fulfilling Dr Frank's wish that Walter receive theological training in Belfast . This in no way stopped the Pastor from keeping in close touch and, when it came to times of great danger, expending great effort to obtain visas for the family to leave Germany. Without his persistence in bringing their case to the attention of Lord Halifax's office, it is doubtful whether their lives would have been saved. Although help did not arrive in time for Walter, his determination to escape was strengthened by the knowledge that Mary and the boys were already safe in England .

            His loving care for the writer's father was brought home to her personally when Dr Frank, whom she had never met, at the age of 105 sent her a wedding gift with a handwritten letter, “for your father's sake”.

            The memory of her father and the story of Dr Arnold Frank are very precious to her.

Ruth Hanson, Leeds

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