Franziska (Fanny) Marx, geb. Walter

Fanny Walter was born on December 30, 1896 in Kleinsteinach, Lower Franconia, to the cattle dealer Meier Walter and his wife Regina. Her brother Benno was born three years later. Meier Walter was an important person in the Kleinsteinach Jewish community: On February 28, 1937 the local newspaper published an appreciation of him on his 70th birthday. Fanny Walter married the Munich merchant Julius Marx on March 7, 1922. He ran a wholesale and retail shoe business at Corneliusstraße 2. Their daughter Lisl Karola was born on December 20, 1923. She died on April 27, 1938; the cause of death is unknown. Fanny Marx' husband, Julius, was imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp in the aftermath of the “Kristallnacht” pogroms on November 10, 1938. He wasn’t released until December 19, 1938. His business friend Franz Fried was also deported to Dachau. After his release, Franz Fried stayed for some time with Fanny and Julius Marx at Corneliusstraße 2. His granddaughter, the presenter and writer Amelie Fried, told the story 70 years later in her book, “Schuhhaus Pallas.” On November 20, 1941 Fanny Marx and her husband Julius were deported from the Milbertshofen freight station to Kaunas in Lithuania, together with 1,000 other Jewish men, women and children. The original destination was Riga, but the train was diverted as the the ghetto in Riga was overcrowded. On November 25, 1941 Einsatzkommando 3, headed by SS-Standartenführer Karl Jäger, shot the Jews deported from Munich at Fort IX in Kaunas. Fanny Marx' parents did not survive the Nazi period either: Regina Marx died on April 15, 1942 in the retirement home of the Jewish community at Klenzestraße 4; her husband, Meier, died ten days later, on April 25, 1942. Only Fanny Marx' brother, Benno, managed to escape to the USA in 1942. His daughter, Carol, the niece of Fanny Marx, lives in Florida today. She and her husband, Martin Seidman, have many children and grandchildren.(text Thomas Nowotny, editor C. Fritsche, translation T. Axelrod)