In January 2011 I stated as follows: “Josef Focsaneanu, a very well known pharmacist in Sadagora, deceased on 13.01.1933 at the age of 72 years. We learn, that – among many personalities from Czernowitz and Sadagora – Josef’s three sons, Dr. Lazar Focsaneanu, Saki and Fritz Focsaneanu attended the mourning ceremony. We come across Saki’s name again in Hugo Gold’s “Geschichte der Juden in der Bukowina”:

“The summer of 1940 brought a great surprise with the marching in of the Soviet Russians, but also a great disappointment. The Sadagurans had hoped for deliverance from the Romanian Jew-hating regime, but the nationalization of the people’s possessions in the year 1940, from which the Jews were the most to suffer, was superseded in the spring of 1941 by the deportation of the so-called asocial elements, the so-called bourgeoisie, the small businessmen – there were no wholesalers any more – and the hard working trades people, who in their small businesses with a few workers and modern machines had achieved a modicum of success, and the Zionists. Many were jailed, like the pharmacist, Sacki Fokschaner, and the Jewish Gemeinde secretary, Josef Körner, who perished there. Many were deported to Siberia, such as Nathan Luttinger, Mosche Stupp, Hersch Roll, Mottl Katz, Jakob Rechter, Leon Brender, Leiser Metsch, Isak Beutel, and many others perished there with their families from hunger and cold.”

But who knows, perhaps there are still descendants of Josef Focsaneanu out there!?”

More than nine years later, in March 2020, Frank Fokschaneanu, Josef Focșăneanu’s great-grandson, contacted me by sharing details from his family history and the amazing family photo below. Frank’s grandfather Friedrich Fokschaneanu was the founder of the Goetheplatz-Apotheke in Munich. The family tradition persists!

NN, Josef Focșăneanu, Friedrich (Fritz) Focșăneanu, Sakhi Focșăneanu, Lazar Focșăneanu, NN