The promise of Margot Friedländer, Holocaust survivor

Margot Friedländer carries a collar with amber.Some stones are intense yellow, others darker, sometimes, when she has to think about a word or a phrase, she touches it hard.Because this is not any necklace.She was from her mother, Auguste, that she gave it to him before the extermination field of Auschwitz-Birkenau.And she also gave him advice: "Try to make your life."

Margot was born 100 years ago on November 5 in the popular Berlin neighborhood of Kreuzberg within a Jewish family.She grew up in that Berlin of Interwar, that of the Republic of Weimar, that of inflation, that of the collective trauma of the Versailles Treaty.And her life, like that of so many people in that country, "and then in the rest of Europe -, was truncated in 1933 with Hitler's rise to power.

In 1937, his parents divorced.Shortly after, in 1938, her mother tried several times to emigrate along with Margot and her little brother, Ralph.But it was in vain.She found the closed door of many countries, including the United States.

Then, the family decides, again, to prepare their flight from Germany, the last attempt.But the Gestapo stops Ralph, and they take it.“He was a brilliant young man, he was 17 years old.They took him to the east, as he used to say then, ”says Margot.

His mother, knowing that if he went to the police station to claim his son, they would also arrest her, he gave the neighbors a notebook with several directions of people in Berlin and abroad to give it to Margot, along with a bag.Inside was the necklace of her.The same as she continues to carry today.She also gave the neighbors a message to transmit it: "Versuche, Dein Leben Zu Machen" [try to make your life]."My mother did not wait for me, she gave himself to the Gestapo to be with her son, my brother," she explains.

Neither Auguste, nor Ralph returned.Nor did the parent of his, Artur, returned who had fled Belgium before.All were killed.

Changed appearance to escape Nazi persecution

Alone and without a family, Margot did as his mother asked for his life.She dyed her intense red hair, her nose operated to "seem less Jewish," David's star who marked her clothes and put on a chain with a cross on the neck was removed.With the help of a network of people who supported Jews in hiding she could survive for almost two years.She became a nomad in her own home, she hid in sixteen different places."I found good people who hid me, endangering her own life," recalls Margot.

But the ‘Greife’, Jewish betrayers who worked for the Gestapo, denounced it in April 1944. It was arrested and taken to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where, as promised, he tried to leave alive.And she got it.In the same concentration camp she met again with Adolf Friedländer, whom she knew about Berlin, when both worked in the Jewish cultural association.She of dressmaker;And he, as head of administration.

When they released the countryside, Margot and Adolf were together, next to each other, how the soldiers were leaving in a row.“I wanted to look out that open door and check that no one was going to kill me.The truth is, I don't know very well how I survived the field (...) every day I did what they asked me to do, then it was free and it was very rare.We were unable to move, ”she explains.

The promise of exile

For a few months Margot and Adolf continued to live in the field protected by the Red Cross.They often went for a walk.“One day in June 1945, Adolf asked me if I imagined a life together, Adolf wanted us to get married.I always thought that to marry more things were needed, I was not in love, I was in stone.I needed time to feel again as a human being, a person with feelings, because all I felt was pain and nostalgia.The same thing happened to Adolf, there were more feelings than falling in love, ”she acknowledges.

On June 26, 1945, Adolf and Margot married the Jewish rite in the concentration camp where he had been captive only one month earlier.

My Hair Is Growing !!!😭 Thank You Rice Water!BEFORE YOU ASK ME ABOUT RICE WATER, YOUTUBE YOU

— Farah C. Fortune Sun Sep 20 06:57:01 +0000 2020

Adolf - who had also lost his whole family - and Margot never promised to return to Germany, that country that had given them a lot, but that took them all.Therefore, Margot and he decided to emigrate to New York.And there they started a new life, in the Queens neighborhood.They traveled a lot, and sometimes also to Europe, even to Germany, Munich, but never to Berlin.

In 1997, after 52 years married, Adolf died on December 25."Again, I stayed alone," she admits.Therefore, she took part in her time to undertake biographical writing classes.It was when she began writing about her extraordinary life.Her stories of how, despite everything, she moved on.

In 2003, the German Senate invited her to Berlin in a program of persecuted citizens during Nazism, which tries to return, for example, nationality and repair victims of Nazi persecution.Margot accepted.It was then that a German filmmaker, Thomas Halaczinsky, who lives in New York, - who had heard of Margot's stories - proposed to shoot a documentary about her and the trip back from her to the city that saw her born.

With 82 years, Friedländer returned to Berlin, where he never promised long ago.But it was no longer that city that he made so much suffered, there he received goodness, and hope.He once again."When I arrived, I went to take a walk on a street that I knew well, and I remember having stopped and thought:‘ My Berlin, which I am happy to have been born from such a beautiful city. "And from that trip, he returned to visit the capital several times.

With the experience acquired in his writing workshop, he wrote a book in 2008 called exactly “Versuche, Dein Leben Zu Machen”, the advice that his mother gave him, in which he told his story as victims of the Holocaust, but also about the hope ofwho has come forward despite adversities.

And that advice continued to maintain it, because a new chapter of his life opened in 2010, when he decided to move to Berlin, and return to his city, to continue with his life."I'm still impressed to decide to return, but it helps me, because [the city] is my support."

Keep your memory alive in schools

But not in any way.He decided that he would explain his history to schools, institutes, in entities, to everyone who wanted to hear it."I feel very grateful, that so many people want to listen to me, today I have spent in the European Parliament, before hundreds of people, I never thought I could live something so special," she explains.

And he adds: “I do not do it for me, I do it for you, also for young people, because those who cannot speak, are remembered and what happened is not repeated again.

However, he admits with regret that he has seen in recent years an increase in anti -Semitism."Unfortunately, anti -Semitism has always existed, but now it is stronger, it is something that causes me a great sadness, it hurts," he says while looking towards the floor, and the necklace touch again.

“We are only human beings, we don't have Christian, Jewish or Muslim blood.We are human beings, and we all deserve to be respected, ”Margot ditch.After that, she poses flirtatious in front of the camera for a photo.When she smiles, she also enlightens her brown eyes.

Margot says that he has lived "four lives", and of what is most proud of them is the current chapter, which allows him to explain his story.

To continue talking on behalf of those who ran out of voice.