Martha Krebs, née Eberhardt was born in Maßbach on February 24, 1898 as the oldest daughter of the master baker and grain merchant Samuel Eberhardt and his wife Amalie (Malchen), née Rosenberger from Bad Kissingen. In Maßbach, Martha’s father played an important role and was the chairman of the Israelite Cultural Community for many years. The family owned a bakery in Maßbach. Like her sister Cornelia, Martha first attended the Protestant kindergarten in Maßbach. Then the sisters attended the Jewish Elementary School and – after that had been closed – they became pupils of the Catholic school in Maßbach.

In May 1921, Martha married the merchant and banker Julius Krebs from Reichenberg and moved to Bad Kissingen with him, where their son Werner Jakob was born in 1923. When the situation in Germany became more and more dangerous after the Nazi’s seizure of power, the Krebs couple and their 12-year-old son Werner, who was then attending class 2 of Kissingen Realschule, emigrated to Palestine at the beginning of December 1934, where they found an apartment in Tel Aviv. In Palestine, father and son Krebs had their passports extended at the German Consulate in Jaffa and applied for a children’s ID card, respectively.

The family couldn’t make up their minds, however, to permanently stay in Palestine.

Instead, they decided to go to the USA like Martha’ sister Nelly and their parents. From Palestine, they traveled to England, where they sailed from Southampton to New York on the passenger steamer “Aquitania” on July 6, 1938. They arrived there six days later, and the family was together in the New World after years of being separated.

Her parents and her sister Nelly also lived there, which made it easier for the family to get used to the New World, as Martha’s father hints at in his letters. Martha’s husband and her son had found work as whitewashers and were paid quite well. In 1948, Martha Krebs became a grandmother. Her son Werner who had married in the meantime had got a daughter.

Martha Krebs died in New York in August 1983 at the age of 85. Her husband had already died 20 years before her.