Frank Kussy was born Werner Franz Kussy to a Czech Jewish family in Dresden, Germany in 1910. He studied engineeringFrank Kussy was born Werner Franz Kussy to a Czech Jewish family in Dresden, Germany in 1910. He studied engineering at the University of Munich (1932) and earned the Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Vienna in 1936. On Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938, he was arrested by the Nazis and later released. He and his family fled Germany in late August 1939, only to be trapped by the outbreak of war in Holland.

Adelaide Kussy was a teacher and a member of the Dutch resistance who assisted Frank and his family in Nazi-occupied Holland during the early 1940s. Frank, his older brother Victor, and their mother were arrested by the Nazis in November 1942 and sent to Westerbork, a Dutch transit camp.

In April 1943, they were transported to Theresienstadt, where they were prisoners until September 1944.

In September-October 1944, the Kussys were sent in boxcars to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Frank was the sole survivor, and was at Birkenau and Gleiwitz, an Auschwitz sub-camp, and was liberated by the Red Army at Blechhammer, another sub-camp, in January 1945. Following the war, Adelaide and Frank reunited, they returned to Dresden, (now) East Germany, built a new life and family together, and reclaimed the family factory.

Then, when the East Germans nationalized his business, they fled again from Germany and with their children came to the United States in the early 1950’s.

Frank Kussy had a successful career as an engineer and engineering fellow, authored several books, and served as a member of the International Executive Service Corps, consulting in Egypt and Zimbabwe. He spoke about his Holocaust experiences at James Madison College and Michigan State University on several occasions in the 1990s and was the subject of a senior thesis, My Grandfather’s Stories, written by his granddaughter Tamara Warren at James Madison College in 1998.

Frank Kussy passed away 12 days short of his 100th birthday in October 2010.