[4] Frankfurter was a sickly child and suffered an incurable periostitis for which he underwent seven operations between the ages of six and twenty-three.

[4] While studying in Germany, Frankfurter witnessed the Nazis coming to power and their imposition of anti-semitic measures.

The rise of Nazism in Germany and the banning of Jews from German universities compelled him to move to Switzerland to continue his studies, and he settled in Bern in 1934.

There among the Germans and German-speaking Swiss, the Nazi movement gained ground, led by Wilhelm Gustloff.

The latter man ordered the propaganda piece Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903) to be published there for distribution.

Motivated by such insults and attacks on Jewish people, Frankfurter bought a gun in Bern in 1936 and resolved to assassinate Gustloff.

[5] The assassination of Gustloff was widely publicized throughout Europe, especially due to Nazi propaganda directed by Joseph Goebbels.

He wanted to use the Games to promote propaganda on the world stage about the size, power and ideology of the Nazi movement.

"[4] In 1941, as the Nazis occupied Vinkovci, Frankfurter's father was forced to stand on a table while the German soldiers spat in his face, pulled out hair from his long beard, and struck him with their rifle butts.

[12] As Frankfurter left prison, sympathetic crowds cheered him as a hero, chanting, "God bless you.