Friedrich Falk: personal papers

Friedrich ('Fritz') Edgar Falk was born in Dusseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, in 1907, son of banker Siegfied Falk and his wife Edith. He initially trained in the banking business but decided to change his career and study law at the universities of Hamburg, Lausanne, Berlin, Heidelberg and Bonn. In 1933 he was dismissed from his legal clerkship due to being Jewish but managed to finish his doctorate in 1934. He was also the leader of the Jewish youth organisation in Dusseldorf and member of the governing board of the regional body of that organisation ('Westdeutscher Landesverband der jüdischen Jugendvereine Deutschlands'). In the late 1930s he worked as the head of the Jewish Agency for Palestine branch in Hamburg. He applied for a settlement permit to Palestine but emigrated to England on the Kitchener camp scheme in the summer of 1939 intending to go to Palestine from there. He stayed in England as he did not acquire the required papers.

Donated by Susan Jacobs