Obituary “Be human” – In memory of Margot Friedländer

Portrait of Margot Friedländer
Photo (detail): picture alliance / photothek.de | Florian Gaertner

Thousands of students across Germany have heard her story. Even after turning 100, Margot Friedländer remained a tireless advocate for remembrance and Holocaust education.

Berlin (dpa) – In her final years, Margot Friedländer appeared delicate and frail, yet the diminutive lady stood upright almost to the end. Even after her 100th birthday, the Holocaust survivor continued to visit classrooms and attend memorial events – always kind, patient and determined. She spoke openly about her family, murdered by the Nazis, and of her own fate in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. But most crucially, she returned to a single vital message: “Be human.”

As recently as last Wednesday, Margot Friedländer appeared in public to deliver this important message, although her voice was already very faint. The honorary citizen of Berlin has now died at the age of 103.

The persecution and disenfranchisement of her Jewish family under Adolf Hitler remained vivid in her memory – “as if it were yesterday,” she told the Deutsche Presse Agentur (dpa) in early 2025. She was one of the last Holocaust survivors still able to share her story firsthand.

Yet Margot Friedländer lived very much in the present. The growing divisions in German society and the rise of the far right troubled her greatly. “I don’t understand much about politics,” she said in the dpa interview, “but I always say: That’s how it started back then. Be careful. Do not let it happen.”

A notebook, an amber necklace

Friedländer was born Margot Bendheim on 5 November 1921. By the early 1940s, her parents were already divorced, and her mother was planning to flee Nazi Germany with Margot and her brother Ralph. But before they could escape to Upper Silesia, Ralph was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943. Their mother turned herself in to be with her son. Both were later murdered in the Auschwitz extermination camp.

Margot was left behind with her mother’s parting message – words that would later become the title of her memoir: “Versuche, dein Leben zu machen” (“Try to make your life”). Her mother also left her a small notebook, and a necklace of amber beads, which Margot would wear for the rest of her life.

From one hiding place to another

Over the following 15 months, 16 people helped the 21-year-old find hiding places, but eventually, her luck ran out. She was arrested on the street by Jewish Greifer – Nazi collaborators who hunted down other Jews – and deported to Theresienstadt – a “limbo, neither life, nor death”.

Here, she witnessed prisoners arriving from Auschwitz during the chaotic final days of the war. It became painfully clear to her that she would never see her mother or brother again. Together with her husband, Adolf Friedländer, she emigrated to the United States, where she worked first in a clothing store and later as a travel agent. He remained by her side for over 50 years. “We had both lived through the same experiences, shared the same pain – we didn’t need to speak about it,” she later reflected. Her husband died in 1997.

“Don’t call it Heimweh”

Margot Friedländer returned to her hometown for the first time in 2003 at the invitation of the Berlin Senate and accompanied by filmmaker Thomas Halaczinsky, who documented the journey in his film Don’t Call It Heimweh. From the very first day, Friedländer later recalled, she felt once again that this was her home. She moved back to Berlin when she was in her late 80s.

Many of her American friends and relatives were sceptical, fearing that the Germans might see her only as a kind old lady and use her presence to ease their own guilt. But Margot Friedländer chose not to let such doubts hold her back. She would later say that she never once regretted her decision to return. “I’m doing something you might find strange, but I am – I feel – German.”

Featured on the cover of Vogue

In her new, or old homeland, she soon attracted widespread attention. People were moved by the powerful way she shared her story. In her apartment in a Berlin retirement home, where she lived with her remarkably fearless cat, there was barely enough space for the many awards and honours she had amassed over the years. The walls were lined with photos of her posing next to politicians, and on a table stood the Bambi Award she earned for courage next to a framed copy of Vogue magazine featuring her on the front page. This late recognition meant a lot to her. “I’ve had positive experiences with parents, adults, children, with students,” she said. “With people.”

She was made an honorary citizen of Berlin, having previously received the Federal Cross of Merit in 2011 for her dedication. This Friday, she was also scheduled to be honoured with the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany at a public ceremony.

The event was cancelled before news of her death became public. That evening, German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier paid tribute to her tireless commitment and her profound humanity. “Margot Friedländer left a deep impression on everyone she met with her warmth, compassion and extraordinary strength,” wrote the President.
What has been, we can no longer change.
Even in her later years, Friedländer loved to attend the opera whenever time allowed. Her favourite work was Nabucco, the story of the Hebrews’ captivity in Babylon. She once said that during the famous Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, Va, pensiero, she would often sit with tears in her eyes.

Friedländer leaves a lasting legacy – above all, however, a message of reconciliation and remembrance. At the age of 101, she set up a foundation dedicated to promoting freedom and democracy. Its mission is to continue educational work in schools and to award the Margot Friedländer Prize.

“We cannot change the past, but we must never allow it to happen again,” said Friedländer. “Never again should even a single person suffer what was done to others back then – simply because they were not recognised as human beings.”

On Skalitzer Strasse 32 in Berlin-Kreuzberg, brass-plated stumbling stones (Stolpersteine) commemorate her brother Ralph and mother Auguste Bendheim. Margot has a stone there, too. It notes her deportation to Theresienstadt. And beneath that, it says: “Survived.”