Vogue Germany hasn’t put a model or actor on the cover this month. Instead, a 102-year-old Holocaust survivor made the front page of the renowned fashion magazine. Margot Friedländer, a centenarian, is one of the world’s oldest survivors of the Holocaust.
Friedländer, who has made it her life’s work to tell people about what she experienced, told Vogue Germany, “I am grateful. Grateful that I made it. For being able to fulfill my mother’s wish.
That I have made my life.” But who is Margot Friedländer? What is her story? Let’s take a closer look Margot Friedländer was born into a Jewish family in Berlin in 1921. Friedländer said her family, like so many others, faced persecution.
As the Nazis took power, her life turned into a living nightmare. According to the Berlin’s Jewish Museum website, Friedländer lived with her mother and younger brother Ralph after her parents separated. They had plans to flee Germany, but in 1943, Ralph was arrested by the Gestapo – the Nazi’s secret police.
Their mother, who dared stand up to the Gestapo, was deported to Auschwitz alongside Ralph. Before leaving, she left Friedländer a poignant message: “Try to make your life.” After her family’s arrest, Friedländer, then 21, had no choice but to go into hiding.
However, Friedländer was betrayed and captured. She was then sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia – where she remained till 1944. Though Friedländer sur.
