Felix R. Rosenthal 

Felix Rosenthal died in Berkeley on October 3rd, 2009. Born on January 
12, 1917 in Munich, Felix emigrated from Germany in 1933, shortly 
after Hitler came to power, and settled with part of his family in his 
mother's native Florence; after obtaining his Italian high-school 
degree ("licenza liceale") he went on to study engineering at the 
Istituto Politecnico in Milan, but when the Fascists' anti-semitic 
laws of 1938 prohibited Jews from enrolling in public schools and 
universities, he settled in Paris, again with part of his family. At 
the outbreak of WWII in September 1939, Felix was in Switzerland and a 
return to France was impossible; in 1940 he emigrated to Chile before 
finally settling in Berkeley to join his brother Bernard in 1941, and 
enrolling in the engineering school of the University of California. 
From 1943 to 1946 he served in the US Army and became one of "The 
Ritchie Boys" - GIs of German origin who spoke German natively and 
were trained in Military Intelligence at Camp Ritchie, Maryland. He 
was discharged with the rank of Master Sergeant and returned to the 
University of California to study architecture; after having obtained 
his MA he became assistant to Eric Mendelsohn, the renowned architect 
who had recently joined Berkeley's Architecture Department. In 1948 
Felix moved from Berkeley to San Francisco where he practiced 
architecture for over twenty years, while living on Telegraph Hill and 
enjoying (and being very much part of) the North Beach scene of the 
'fifties and 'sixties. With his Italian background he fitted easily 
and joyfully into its relaxed rhythm and lifestyle, his days often 
beginning with breakfast at the Caffè Trieste and ending with evenings 
in his bohemian apartment atop Vallejo Street in the company of 
friends on whom he enthusiastically practiced his considerable 
culinary talents. Being a handsome, multilingual bachelor with a 
cosmopolitan background, Felix was much in demand in San Francisco 
society, and he developed warm friendships with fellow professionals, 
neighborhood shopkeepers, artists and literary figures, of whom there 
was no shortage in postwar North Beach. He successfully directed the 
annual San Francisco Art Festival for two years - a task for which he 
was ideally suited because his cheerful and tolerant personality 
enabled him to calm a lot of conflicting egos. He was also active in 
local Democratic politics and in the anti-McCarthy demonstrations when 
the House Unamerican Activities Committee sent representatives to San 
Francisco ("we ran them out of town", he proudly said) and, later, in 
the anti-Vietnam War movement . In the early 1970s, Felix moved to 
Zurich, Switzerland, to help manage the family's antiquarian book 
business "L'Art Ancien", which had been founded by his father in 1920. 
What was to be a very short temporary stay turned into a thirteen-year 
activity as antiquarian bookseller before Felix returned to the Bay 
Area in 1982 and retired, first to San Rafael and later San Jose, 
where he spent his last years in an assisted living apartment, and 
where his nephew and niece Tony and Victoria Misch kept a loving, 
watchful eye on his well-being. During the last months of his life he 
resided at Chaparral House in Berkeley. Felix's childhood infatuation 
with paper airplanes eventually turned into a very successful book 
published in 1976 in English, German, Italian and Hebrew. It was a 
great source of pride and amusement to Felix that this childhood 
hobby, which often made him neglect his homework and drew warnings 
from his mother, turned into an achievement that attracted 
international recognition. Felix will be remembered - always with a 
smile - by a host of relatives and friends scattered all over the 
United States, Canada, Europe and Israel, each having her or his own 
"Felix story" to tell. His closest surviving relative is his brother 
Bernard (with his wife Ruth) in Berkeley, and his nephew Anthony Misch 
(with his wife Victoria) in San Jose, who cared for him with 
extraordinary devotion during his last years. In accordance with his 
wishes, Felix was cremated and his ashes were scattered in his beloved 
San Francisco Bay. 

Published in San Francisco Chronicle on October 15, 2009