By Pauline von Pezold
At the age of 101, Margot Friedländer founded a foundation to continue the life’s work of Holocaust survivors. The five board members appointed by her are supposed to lead the foundation in her spirit, for democracy and freedom.
“I speak for those who can no longer do it. For the six million people who were killed simply because they were Jews. Plus millions more people who the regime didn’t consider as human beings. We can no longer change what happened. But it must never happen again,” said Margot Friedländer.
In the underground, Friedländer wore a cross to avoid being recognized as a Jew. She was later deported to Theresienstadt Photo: Private
Margot Friedländer was born as a Jewish German in Berlin in 1921 and was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp by the Nazis in 1944. Her parents and brother were murdered. After her liberation, she lived with her husband in the USA for 64 years before returning to Berlin at the age of 88.
To fight against forgetting and for “never again”. And to promote tolerance and respect. Now, at 101 years old, the establishment of the Margot Friedländer Foundation is intended to ensure that this work of remembrance is still possible in a time without contemporary witnesses. The foundation will continue its life’s work: “That is my hope, that is my wish.”
Board members Nico Raabe, Joachim Gauck, Margot Friedländer, Monika Grütters, Karsten Dreinhöfer and Mathias Döpfner (from left) Margot Friedländer Dr. Nico Raabe Monika founder Margot Friedländer Mathias Döpfner Prof. CarstenDreinhöfer Photo: Ralf Günther
A foundation for the future of remembrance!
Margot Friedländer selected the five board members of the foundation herself and maintains a friendship with all of them. “You all have my deepest confidence,” she says. The chairwoman of the board is the CDU politician Monika Grütters, her deputy the doctor Karsten Dreinhöfer.
Margot and her husband Adolf Friedländer in 1946. They took the ship to the USA Photo: Private
Former Federal President Joachim Gauck, Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer, and management consultant Nico Raabe are additional members of the board. All five were touched to have been chosen by Holocaust survivors for this task.
“I was born during the war and had a happy childhood, while this woman had one doomed to death as a young girl,” says Joachim Gauck. The board is currently working on various projects, and the purpose of the foundation is broad. However, freedom, democracy, memory and enlightenment are what all projects have in common.
Friedländer’s mother gave her her address book and an amber necklace and told her to “try to make a living” before she was taken away Photo: Private
The award ceremony of the Margot Friedländer Prize, which takes place on Tuesday evening and was previously carried out by the Schwarzkopf Foundation, will then be transferred to the Margot Friedländer Foundation.
Margot Friedländer was satisfied with the foundation and its board and said she was looking forward to “many years of successful collaboration.”