Lila and Leo Marx Collection ; 1901-2012 1956-1982

The Lila and Leo Marx Collection contains the papers of this couple, with documentation about their early lives in Germany and the effects on their lives by Nazi persecution, their subsequent emigration, and the fates of their family members. Much of the collection focuses on their restitution claims and financial situation. The collection consists of a large amount of restitution correspondence; family correspondence; official, educational, and employment documents; a chronology and narrative of the lives of Lila and Leo Marx and their families; and a few photographic postcards.Also included is a 27-page typescript containing an overview, chronology and translations of the correspondence.Leo Marx was born on August 11, 1918 in Reichenbach, a small town in Hesse, Germany. Leo was the middle son of Nathan Marx and his wife Karolina (called Lina) née May; his elder brother was Ludwig and his younger brother Siegfried (called Siggy). At the age of 13 Leo left home for an apprenticeship and later employment at a hardware store in Karlsruhe.Lieselotte (also spelled Liselotte, called Lilo, and later, Lila) Baum was the daughter of Hilda Baum, and was born in Strasbourg (then Strassburg, Germany) on February 4, 1915. After Lila's birth Hilda Baum returned to her hometown of Nonnenweier in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. There in 1922 she married Joseph Weil; Lila took her stepfather's surname. Lila worked in various companies and positions until she lost her employment due to being Jewish. She also studied at a business college, where she learned English.Leo Marx and Lila Weil met in 1934 while they were both working in Karlsruhe. On April 22, 1937 Leo Marx left Germany for New York City, where his brother Siegfried (Siggy) already lived. Leo first lived with maternal relatives, the Mays. Lila emigrated to New York on June 16, 1937 and first lived with distant cousins.In New York, Leo worked as a dishwasher, a pieceworker on the assembly line and other positions for five years. - Lila Weil was first employed at an assembly line in New Jersey, and then as domestic help, before working as a bookkeeper with a German-Jewish firm in New York City's diamond district.On October 2, 1937 Leo Marx and Lila Weil were married. After sharing an apartment in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan with Leo’s brother, Siggy, the couple moved to the Highbridge neighborhood of the Bronx. Siggy and Leo took night courses at a trade school in refrigeration. By April 1, 1940 Leo and Lila lived again in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan.On March 4, 1940, Leo and Siggy's mother and elder brother, Karoline and Ludwig Marx, arrived in New York; Nathan Marx had died in 1931. Due to his experiences in forced labor for the Nazis in Germany, Ludwig Marx was hospitalized for mental illness in the early 1940s and remained there until his death in 1984. - Lila's family members in Germany never came to America: by September 1939 her parents had been evicted from their home in Nonnenweier and gone to Berlin, along with her grandmother, Pauline Baum; in December 1940 Lila's half-brother Robert Weil had joined them there. Pauline Baum died in Berlin in 1942. In March 1943 Robert Weil was sent to Auschwitz and Lila's parents to Theresienstadt. In 1944 Hilda and Joseph Weil were also deported to Auschwitz.Siggy, Leo, and Lila Marx became American citizens in 1944; at this time Lila officially changed her name from Liselotte to Lila. That same year Leo and Siggy launched Lema Refrigeration Sales and Service – a business for the repair and reconditioning of old refrigerators for apartment buildings in Upper Manhattan. Lila did the bookkeeping for the new business, while Siggy's wife Johanna conducted the secretarial work. Leo and Siggy did the repairs, pick-ups, and deliveries of refrigerators. In 1948, Lema Refrigeration moved to the the Kingsbridge neighborhood of the Bronx, where the two couples had new, separate houses built; in 1945 Siggy and Johanna had a daughter and Leo and Lila a son, followed by a second son in 1950.In 1976, Lema Refrigeration closed; Siggy and Johanna retired to Scottsdale, Arizona, while Leo and Lila went to Berkeley, California, where their son and his family lived. Johanna Marx died in 1986, Siggy in 2011. Leo Marx passed away in 2001 in Berkeley, Lila in 2008 in Pasadena, California.Finding aid available onlineProcesse