us-005578-irn624324-irn627923
type: RecordSet
archival history: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
biographical history: Hans Benjamin Marx (b. 1927) was born in Mannheim, Germany, to Elise (née Rihm, 1898-1976) and Ernest Marx (1895-1965). Ernest was born in Mannheim, and worked as a traveling salesman. Elise was born in Mannheim to Protestant parents, but converted to Orthodox Judaism prior to marrying Ernest. Hans’s had one older sister, Claire (Klara, 1925-2009). The family moved to Frankfurt am Main in the early spring of 1932. Han’s mother wanted to raise her children fully Jewish. Hans’s father, however, was less religiously inclined, resulting in Hans and his sister belonging to an Orthodox congregation while growing up in a home that was not especially observant. They celebrated some Jewish holidays, but did not follow kosher rules. Hans’s father refused to go to the synagogue, and instead of observing the Sabbath the children attended school on Saturdays. Less than three months after Hitler came to power in January 1933, Hans enrolled in first grade in his neighborhood public school. Following the September 15, 1935, passage of the Nuremberg Laws, Hans and Claire, as offspring of a mixed marriage, were classified as Geltungsjude, Jews by law. In 1938, Jewish children were barred from public schools, and Hans and Claire had to travel nearly an hour by bus and streetcar to get to their new school. On November 9 and 10, during the Kristallnacht pogrom, the family’s synagogue was robbed, along with local Jewish businesses. On November 11, the Gestapo showed up at the Marx house and arrested Hans’s father, Ernest, and then deported him to Buchenwald concentration camp, where he was assigned prisoner number 29361. Hans and his mother and sister were forced out of their house in order to make their neighborhood Judenrein, free of Jews, by the end of the month. They had to sell off most of their costlier furniture and possessions and move into a designated Jewish building. Ernest returned from Buchenwald on December 8. He was released because he had a visa for Switzerland, and promi…
date: circa 1927-1946
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had some members with language: deu
has or had some members with language: eng
has or had subject: 701
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn627923
is or was included in: us-005578-irn624324
record resource extent: folder 1
record resource structure: The collection retains the donor's arrangement in a single folder.
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: The collection documents the Holocaust-era experiences of Hans Benjamin Marx and his family, including their pre-war lives in Mannheim and Frankfurt am Main, Hans's experiences in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, and his immigration to the United States aboard the SS Marine Flasher in 1946. The collection consists of an annotated album assembled by Hans with photographs, a small amount of family correspondence (includes donor-provided translations), identity documents, and Hans's SS Marine Flasher ticket.
title: Hans Benjamin Marx papers