Alfred Marx
My name is Alfred Marx, and I was born on May 8th, 1903, the second son to my parents Solomon and Johanna (Hantchen) Marx. We lived in a comfortable home in Oberlangenstadt, a small village in the municipality of Küps in the Kronach District, in Upper Franconia, Bavaria. I have an older brother Sigmund (b. March 19, 1899) with whom I am very close.
My father is in the furrier business, “Marx & Bäuml GmbH” (GmbH = LLC) which has been in our family for many generations. His business is quite successful. In addition to the furrier business, he also caters to local butchers selling them the intestinal casings from the animal carcass he skins to make and sell pelts. I admire and respect my father and want to work alongside him as his apprentice. My brother Sigmund also works in the business.
By 1927, my brother and I moved the family business to Lichtenfels, a larger town and district center 10 miles away. We set up our business and established ourselves in the Lichtenfels community. In 1928 we registered the business as “Marx and Bäuml Ltd”.
Soon after we arrived in Lichtenfels, I met the beautiful Ellen Bamberger (b. May 7, 1904), daughter of a prominent Jewish family that were leaders in the basket industry. (Lichtenfels was known as the “Basket City” of the world.) Ellen and I married and lived in a stately home located at Bamberger Strasse 19. The home belonged to Ellen’s father, Josef Bamberger, who was a well-known basket trader. In 1930 we welcomed our daughter Inge. In 1932, our second daughter Hannelore or Hanne was born. We lived a very comfortable life in Lichtenfels.
The business I built with my brother was quite successful and afforded us many luxuries, including a Mercedes Benz car. We were respected members of our community, embraced not only by our Jewish neighbors but by our non-Jewish neighbors as well. Everyone respected one another. We were all friends. My darling Ellen was an avid gardener and grew the most spectacular rose bushes on the side of our home. Her rose garden was the envy of the town.
Our girls grew up with many friends and enjoyed school. Inge started first grade in the public school in Lichtenfels where the classes were taught by nuns. Sister Margaret taught Inge how to read and write. She was quite fond of Inge and very accepting of all her students, Jews and non-Jews alike. However, by the second grade, everything had changed as discrimination and antisemitism against Jews was escalating, and Inge was feeling different and ostracized. She was made to feel ‘less than’ and often relegated to sitting at the very back of the class. It was during this time that Inge felt bullied by her classmates because she was Jewish. It was 1937, the Nuremberg Race Laws were well into effect at this time as our rights were being systematically dismantled by the Nazi regime. We felt dehumanized and marginalized and could see that life in our beloved town (and country) was becoming dangerous for us and our extended family.
I often traveled to the United States on business, and it was during one of these trips to New York City in 1937 seeking future business opportunities that I began to lay the groundwork for our family to leave Germany and emigrate to America. Upon my return from this trip, I immediately applied for the necessary papers to emigrate to the United States, but was put on a list, which required us to wait until 1940 because of the restrictive quotas in place for immigration to the US. This was extremely frustrating and concerning; we didn’t think we’d make it out alive if we had to wait until 1940. I had heard about work or concentration camp - Dachau - was not that far from Lichtenfels; a few hours south just outside of München. We did not want to be sent there because we didn’t know what would happen to us once imprisoned there. While I was frantically filling out so many forms to apply for visas, my mother Johanna, was applying for temporary British visas, and in the hope that our family could flee, temporarily, to England.
The night of November 9, 1938, later known as Kristallnacht (“The Night of Broken Glass”) changed everything for us and all Jews in Germany. The Lichtenfels synagogue, Jewish businesses and homes were ransacked and destroyed. Our stately home was no exception as rocks and bricks were thrown through every window of our home. The Nazis broke down the door and came into our house – yelling, screaming - destroying whatever they could get their hands on. Every piece of glass, every dish, vase, crystal (precious family heirlooms) was thrown through the windows landing on my Ellen’s beloved rose garden. It was a chaotic, frightening and shocking moment; almost too unbelievable to imagine and process.
Ellen and I had a non-Jewish tenant living in a third-floor apartment of our home. We instructed Inge, who was nine years old at the time, to quickly flee with Hanne and baby cousin, Marion (my brother Sigmund’s daughter) to the 3rd floor apartment to hide. Our tenant, a non-Jew, was very kind and helped Inge, Hanne and Marion hide while the home was being ransacked and searched. It was Inge’s job to keep the other little girls calm and quiet. When the Nazis banged on our tenant’s apartment door, our tenant said, “oh, there’s nobody here”. Our tenant could have easily given the girls up, but they stood up to the Nazis and did the right thing. The girls, by the grace of God, were safe.
Like all the Jewish men of Lichtenfels, I was arrested and thrown in the local jail for several days. My driver’s license was confiscated. While in jail, the cell doors were not locked, so Ellen was permitted to bring me my meals. Most of us who were rounded up and arrested during Kristallnacht were released after a short period of time, unharmed. However, it was a very clear warning that now was the time to get out of Lichtenfels and Germany or risk imprisonment in Dachau, or worse.
My precious Inge had a memory that stayed with her and would haunt her for the rest of her life. She came home from school one day to see my Mercedes being driven down the road by someone she didn’t know. She later learned that it was confiscated from the garage by the ruthless and violent leader of the local Nazis; Fränkel “Franz” Fischer, who now claimed our car as his own. I told my distraught Inge that there was nothing I could do. The Nazis were taking everything that belonged to the Jews: their cars, homes and businesses. Mine and my brother Sigmund’s business, “Marx & Bäuml”, was confiscated and liquidated. Our dreams were brutally cut short by Nazi persecution as they systematically stripped us day-by-day of our rights.
By early summer of 1939, I was working desperately to arrange for our family to flee Lichtenfels. At the same time, I was also helping Sigmund’s brother-in-law, Alfred Oppenheimer, along with his wife Anni and his mother Betty to flee Lichtenfels. I was able to procure several fur coats, which were deemed unlawful contraband by the Nazis (Jews were not allowed to leave with their valuables), for the Oppenheimer’s to use to trade for startup money once they arrived in America. The local Gestapo under the direction of the notorious and evil Fränkel “Franz” Fischer found out about this plan and were going to arrest me for aiding the Oppenheimer family, so I had to immediately flee Germany to escape arrest. This left Ellen, with the help of my mother Johanna to pack up all our belongings in a “lift” or large storage container that we planned to store in Holland. The “lift” would eventually be shipped to the United States and would allow us to set up our new home. However, timing was not on our side because the war had started. Our “lift became property of the Nazis. All our possessions were lost forever.
On August 30, 1939, prior to the start of the war, I was reunited with my mother, Ellen and the girls in England. We were relieved to be out of Germany and the reach of the Nazis. Still, we were in danger and living in a war zone. German air raids were becoming a daily reminder of the war, so we sent Inge and Hanne to live in the English countryside for their own safety. They lived in a small rural village called Knebworth in Hertfordshire where they were taken in by a lovely and kind (non-Jewish) woman. Inge and Hanne went to school and learned English.
With Inge and Hanne safe in the countryside and out of Harm’s way, Ellen and I remained in London and reunited with my brother Sigmund and his family (wife Frieda (nee Oppenheimer) and daughter Marion) who also were able to make their way to England. It was a tremendous relief to know that most of the family was safely out of the clutches of Hitler and his totalitarian regime; yet we still worried for Alfred, Betty and Anni Oppenheimer, Frieda’s brother, mother and sister-in-law, who were left behind in Lichtenfels after being arrested for packing contraband (the procured furs coats) in their furniture that was going to be shipped to America. We learned that the Oppenheimer’s were arrested and imprisoned. We were distraught and feared for their lives. We felt utterly helpless.
When our American visas became valid in late March or early April of 1940, Johanna, Ellen, Hanne and I boarded one of the last civilian liners leaving England, the SS Volendam, which began its voyage across the Atlantic where we would rebuild our lives in America. The ship was protected in part by a convoy of boats to ensure our safe passage. We arrived in New York on April 17, 1940. Through the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) we were given initial shelter until a small furnished apartment was found in New York City. Ellen and I immediately registered the girls in school to establish some normalcy for them. Their lives for the last few years have been anything but normal. They both adapted easily to their new country and surroundings and given their grasp of English (which they had learned in the English countryside) were able to assimilate in their new school.
I was able to find employment in a small manufacturing company stripping furs; something I was experienced in from working at “Marx & Bäuml” back in Lichtenfels. Ellen found work as a domestic. We worked hard. We were able to save money and move to a small apartment in Elmhurst, Queens. We continued to work hard and save and a few years later we moved to a larger apartment in the same building. By the end of the 1940’s I was doing well financially so my mother and Ellen no longer needed to work. I had developed many American business contacts and even re-established European business contacts after the war. One such company was Striwa of Lichtenfels. Unlike my brother Sigmund, who turned his back on Germany, I was able to travel and reestablish German ties. Was it sending a message to the Germans that you couldn’t get rid of this Jew? Most definitely!
Postscript:
Many years later, Alfred was asked about his life in Germany:
“Look, I’m alive. Hitler wanted to kill off every Jew that walked. Here I am with six grandchildren, two successful families. Just look at me. And I feel the Jewish people have come back, and I expect my family to be successful tomake up for the Anne Franks who could not be successful, who might have been. And many like her. You tried to kill me off like a bug and I want to say: “Hitler, you failed”.
Alfred Marx died on May 11, 1989, at the age of 86 in Elmhurst, Queens, New York. Ellen died four years later. Inge and her family returned to Germany several times after the war. She returned to Lichtenfels with her children and grandchildren in 2016 and wasn’t expecting to ever return to Germany and Lichtenfels. In November 2018, to coincide with the 80th commemoration of the November pogrom, Inge returned to Lichtenfels to reclaim her grandmother's driver's license which had been confiscated by the Nazis shortly after Kristallnacht.
Alfred Marx’s license was one of the thirteen licenses discovered in 2017 while the town was digitizing town records and became a part of the “13 Jewish Driver’s Licenses” research project by the students at Meranier Gymnasium.
Inge met the District Administrator of Lichtenfels, Christian Meissner, Mayor Andreas Hügerich, Town Archivist Christin Wittenbauer, Upper Franconia Curator Prof. Dr. Gunter Dippold, the students and their history teacher, Manfred Brösamle-Lambrecht who lead this extraordinary and important remembrance research project.
During her visit, Inge was given an opportunity to address the Lichtenfels community. She spoke of her vivid memories of Kristallnacht. She spoke about the trauma she carried with her throughout her life; reliving that awful night whenever she heard the sound of broken glass. For all that she and her family had been through she said, “we refused to let that experience defeat us and crush us like bugs”. It was her family’s strength and resilience that guided their way as they made a new life in America. Hitler didn’t win.
During their visit they also witnessed the installation of Stolpersteine in front of the former Marx residence; their last known freely chosen residence. Each stone starts with these words: “Here Lived”. Stones were laid in honor and memory of: Johanna Marx, Alfred Marx, Ellen Marx, Sigmund Marx and Frieda Marx. Here lived the Marx family and their names were brought back into the light from a dark, horrific past. Inge passed away on February 6, 2023, at the age of 93.
Questions for Discussion
1. What role did family tradition and heritage play in Alfred’s career choice to join the furrier business?
2. How did Alfred and his family integrate into the community of Lichtenfels, both socially and economically?
3. What can we infer about the societal dynamics in Lichtenfels before the rise of antisemitism based on Alfred's descriptions of his relationships with non-Jewish neighbors?
4. What were the early warning signs for Alfred and his family that their safety and rights were being eroded under the Nazi regime?
5. What steps did Alfred take to prepare to leave Germany?
6. How did Alfred’s and Ellen’s reactions to Kristallnacht reflect their resilience and quick thinking under threat?
7. How did the family protect the Marx children during Kristallnacht? How do you think Inge Marx kept her cousins quiet during the night of broken glass?
8. What happened to Alfred’s car?
9. Why did Alfred leave Germany so abruptly in 1939?
10. What might have been the most challenging part of arranging emigration for Alfred and his family, considering the restrictive immigration quotas and ongoing persecution?
11. How did Alfred's time in England shape his perspective on safety, family, and survival during the war?
12. How did Alfred’s experience of losing his business and possessions inform his approach to rebuilding his life in America?
13. What job did Marx have in the United States? What job did his wife have?
14. What does Alfred’s ability to reconnect with German business contacts post-war reveal about his character and outlook on forgiveness or resilience? Why did his brother Sigmund behave differently?
15. How did Alfred’s statement, “Hitler, you failed,” capture his sense of triumph and legacy?
16. In what ways do Alfred’s story and reflections serve as a testament to the resilience of the Jewish people during and after the Holocaust?
17. What lessons from Alfred’s story can be applied to modern discussions about human rights, discrimination, and resilience in the face of adversity?