Lilli Marx

Lilli Marx (born January 27, 1921 as Lilli Behrendt in Berlin ; died April 5, 2004 in Düsseldorf ) was a German journalist and Jewish association official. She got involved in the reconstruction of Jewish life in post-war Germany and founded the Düsseldorf Jewish Women's Association in 1949 .

Lilli Marx was the wife of the journalist and founder and editor of the Allgemeine Jüdische Wochenzeitung , Karl Marx .

Life

Lilli Marx, who grew up in a liberal Jewish family in her native Berlin and graduated from Jewish secondary school in 1934, initially trained as a physiotherapist. Her desire to attend secondary school was denied.

In 1938 she emigrated to Great Britain with a domestic permit, where she met her future husband. Her father, Arthur Behrendt (1888–1941), died in Neuengamme concentration camp . Her mother, Henriette, née Silberstein (1892–1942), died in the Ravensbrück concentration camp . In autumn 1946 Lilli Marx returned to Germany, settled with her husband in Düsseldorf, where she was co-founder and until 1972 managing director of the Allgemeine Jüdische Wochenzeitung .

From 1950 to 1972 she was chairwoman of the Jewish Women's Association in Germany , which she re-established together with Jeanette Wolff , Ruth Galinski (born 1921), Inge Markus (born 1922) and others (originally founded in 1904 as the Jewish Women's Association by Bertha Pappenheim , later banned and dissolved by the Nazis). Since 1956 she has also published the newsletter of this association, The Woman in the Community , which appeared in casual succession in Düsseldorf and was enclosed with the Allgemeine Jüdische Wochenzeitung .

In 1951 Lilli Marx and her husband were involved in founding the Düsseldorf Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation . After she withdrew from active leadership of the Jewish Women's Community, she lived with her second husband, the writer Alexander Czerski (1920–1986), alternately in Israel and Germany. After his death, she returned permanently to Düsseldorf and was always connected and actively involved in Jewish life, in particular the diverse range of events offered by the Jewish community (of which she was part of the board of directors) and WIZO . The Jewish women's community dissolved in the 1980s; the Jewish women born in Germany after 1945 felt more connected to Israel and instead became more involved in the WIZO.

Lilli Marx, who remained interested in all Jewish questions until the end of her life and was a sought-after counselor, died on April 5, 2004 in the Jewish nursing home ( Nelly-Sachs-Haus ) in Düsseldorf.

Fonts

• Karl Marx (May 9, 1897 - December 15, 1966) in commemoration , Düsseldorf-Benrath: L. Marx, 1966

literature

• Walter Tetzlaff: 2000 short biographies of important German Jews of the 20th century. Askania, Lindhorst 1982, ISBN 3-921730-10-4 .
• Ralph Giordano , farewell to Lilli. A personal obituary for Lilli Marx blessed A. In: Jüdische Allgemeine 16/04, April 22, 2004

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Lara Dämmig: Lilli Marx , Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. March 1, 2009 , Jewish Women's Archive