Ellen Marx (born Ellen Pinkus; 24 March 1921 – 11 September 2008) was a human rights activist. She was born in Germany and emigrated to Argentina, arriving in May 1939: she never saw her parents again. Her own youngest daughter disappeared when aged 28 in August 1976. After that Ellen Marx became a prominent member of the German-Jewish community in Buenos Aires and a leader in the German originating group within the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo movement. Life Provenance and early years Ellen Pinkus was born into a German-Jewish family in Berlin. She was her parents' only child. Isidor Pinkus, her father. was a leather wholesaler, and a committed democrat at a time when many Germans identified the new democratic regime as a foreign imposition resulting from military defeat and national humiliation. Her mother, born Gertrud Hoffnung, was a Social Democrat and a member of the German League for Human Rights. Ellen received a liberal Jewish education. She attended the prestigious "Prince Bismarck School" (as it was known at that time). In 1934 she joined the Berlin "Ring" scouting organisation which since 1933 had been part of the "League of German-Jewish Youth" ("Bund deutsch-jüdischer Jugend"). Traditionally the league organised Saturday meetings at which members could learn the revived Hebrew language and study Jewish history. There were also games and camping expeditions; but by the time Ellen joined the league's priority had become the organisation of escapes and foreign visas for those who, on account both of race and (at this stage) political activities, were being targeted by the government for persecution. The "League of German-Jewish Youth" was in turn was closely connected with the National Association of German-Jewish Citizens (" Central Verein" / CV). The family traced their German roots back at least two centuries. Ellen's great-grandfather had been granted citizenship (at a time when German Jews did not automatically qualify for it) because he had fought valiantly in the armies confronting Napoleon at the start of the nineteenth century. There was pride in German culture, and before 1933 not too much reason to consider themselves politically or socially separated from other Germans. Even though she would spend most of her life living in a Spanish speaking country, when looking for literary quotes it was to Schiller and Goethe that she would always instinctively turn. At the same time, her Social Democratic mother would have shunned the shrill