Michael Marks was born around 1860 in the small town of Slonim, in Russian Poland. It is now part of Belarus. No one knows exactly when Michael was born – official documents from the time of his birth have not survived, and later documents give slightly different ages. Michael quoted 1859 on his British naturalization papers, but his wedding certificate implies a date of 1864, while his son Simon would later give 1863 as his father’s year of birth. We don’t know why there are different years given for Michael’s birth.
Slonim was part of an area of Russia (the Jewish Pale of Settlement) where Jewish people were allowed to live. Russian laws persecuted Jewish people and set out where they could live and what they could do. Jewish families living in this area experienced poverty and hardship and were not allowed the same rights as non-Jews.
Michael’s family had lived in the Slonim area for several generations. Slonim was a typical small Russian town, with factories which produced bricks, tiles, pottery and tar. Local breweries and a distillery manufactured beer and vodka, and soldiers were stationed at a nearby regimental headquarters. At the end of the 1870s, Slonim had a total population of about 15,000 people, including 10,000 Jews, 3,000 Orthodox Church followers, 1,500 Catholics and 500 Muslims. There were several churches, several synagogues and a mosque in Slonim.
Michael’s parents were not wealthy. Michael’s father, Mordechai, was a tailor, but also owned part of a water-powered grain mill in a neighbouring village. Michael’s mother, Rebecca, died shortly after his birth, so he was raised by his older sisters.
Michael received a religious education in one of Slonim’s Hebrew schools, culminating in his bar mitzvah in the synagogue at the age of 13.
Michael was the youngest of five children. His brothers were called Barnet and Ephraim, and his sisters were called Malke Beile and Esther. The family surname was not always Marks – this was an anglicised version of the name that the family adopted. Some sources suggest that the family surname was originally Markovich, another source suggests it was Davidovich.
In 1881, following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, there was a significant rise in anti-Semitism across Russia. One of the conspirators in the assassination plot was a Jewish woman, and the Russian authorities used this to encourage attacks on Jewish people. Hundreds of Jewish people were killed and injured and on just one day in May 1881, 900 Jewish homes were burnt down in Slonim.
Hundreds of thousands of Jewish people were forced to leave Russia to try to find safety in other countries. All five children of Mordechai Marks emigrated to Great Britain or the United States. Mordechai lived to over a hundred, and there’s no evidence that he ever saw his children again after they migrated.
Glossary
- Persecution - systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another group
- Bar mitzvah - a coming-of-age ritual in Judaism. Once Jewish children reach the age of 13 they are held accountable for their own actions.
- Anglicised – when something non-English becomes influenced by the culture of England.
- Emigration - to permanently leave your country to live in another one.