[1] Martha was the fourth child of the German Jewish couple Ottilie and Heinrich Benjamin Marckwald, who ran a wool store in Berlin.

She overcome the illness after being operated by James Israel, the chief physician at the Jewish Hospital Berlin [de].

As a result of the persectuion of Jews in Nazi Germany, she lost her two houses on Pariser Platz and Wannsee, and almost her entire fortune.

The emigration failed due to the high financial demands of the Nazi government, who tried to extort foreign currency from her helpers, the art dealer Walter Feilchenfeldt and the collector Oskar Reinhart, at the expense of the widow of a world-famous painter.

Her last days are the subject of the German film Martha Liebermann – Ein gestohlenes Leben (2021), where she is portrayed by Thekla Carola Wied.