Life
Markus was born as Erika (Rixi) Scharfstein into a prosperous Austrian Jewish family in Gura Humorului, Bukovina (now in Romania).
In 1916, her family fled, ahead of the Russian advance, settling in Vienna. After finishing school in Dresden she returned to Vienna, where she first made her name at the bridge table. Married young, and disastrously, she devoted herself almost entirely to bridge.
In 1938, she fled Austria after German forces entered Vienna (the Anschluss). Rixi then made her home in London, where she remained for the rest of her life. She worked as a translator for the Red Cross during World War II, and became a naturalised British citizen in 1950.
Rixi's husband also came to London. He fought her efforts to gain independence in every way he could, and fought her for custody of their daughter Margo. Divorce was not simple in those days, but Rixi obtained a judicial separation and a subsequent divorce in 1947. She described in her autobiography three subsequent long-term relationships with men: first Standish Booker, a leading bridge player, then Wash Carr (Walter Copley Carr) of the News of the World, and lastly Harold Lever (Lord Lever), a senior Labour Party politician.
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