Second generation member, Simon Burne, came on the AJR heritage trip to Paris earlier this year, and tells us about a recent discovery of his family history which has made the visit even more significant.
I listened to a podcast about James Bond which led me to think about my late great-aunt Elisabeth Fuchs (née Marx) because of her connection to Ian Fleming. (A long story for another time). Elisabeth was born in Karlsruhe in 1918.
I suddenly remembered that her mother and sister had been captured in Nice and deported to Auschwitz. Having checked some family files, it turns out that before the war her parents and grandmother had moved from Karlsruhe to Nice while Elisabeth and her younger sister moved to London. In 1938 her father died and the sisters briefly went back to Nice and then returned to London. The following summer her sister went to Nice for the school holidays, where her mother suggested that she stayed with her and went to university in France. A fatal decision sadly. In 1942 her mother and sister were picked up by the Gestapo, leaving her grandmother on her own (she died of bronchitis in 1943).
I found out that they had gone through Drancy and were deported from there to Auschwitz where they were murdered. Checking the Mémorial online archive, I can see that they were both deported on convoy 27.
Her mother was Henriette (Henni) Marx (née Fuchs) born 1890 and her sister was Gertrud (Trutsch) Marx born 1922 – the French appear to have added an e to her name and she is listed as Gertrude on the deportation record, but in Elisabeth’s writings she refers to her sister as Gertrud or Trutsch.
Interestingly, the photo that the Drancy archive has for Henni is my grandparents’ wedding photo (1913) with many of my family members present! Henni is standing on the back row 6th from the right.
Elisabeth was both my Dad’s aunt by marriage and his second cousin by blood. She married her mother’s first cousin (my grandmother’s youngest brother). So her mother was a Fuchs who married a Marx, and she was a Marx who married a Fuchs. Not at all confusing!
This makes Henni my 1st cousin twice removed, and Trutsch, like Elisabeth, my second cousin once removed.
This discovery has made our visit to the Mémorial in Paris even more meaningful, so I just wanted to thank you again for organising it.
Simon Burne, AJR member
