A 102-year-old Holocaust survivor and Berlin native is the face of Vogue magazine in Germany.
Margot Friedländer, one of the oldest and most prominent Holocaust survivors in the world, graces the cover of the July-August edition of the fashion and beauty magazine which has hit the newsstands in Europe.
“Respect for life and the responsibility of being human are the core messages of #MargotFriedländer,” the magazine wrote on X promoting the story. “She, who as a Holocaust survivor would have every reason to hate, stands up for love.”
According to a biography on the website of Berlin’s Jewish Museum, Friedländer, née Bendheim, was born in the German capital in 1921, and apprenticed at a tailor shop after finishing school.
Her family tried unsuccessfully to emigrate to the United States before World War II broke out. While making plans to escape Germany, her brother was arrested by the Gestapo. Later, her mother and brother were deported to Auschwitz and murdered. “Try to make your life,” her mother wrote in a message she had left behind.
The 21-year-old went underground but was caught and deported to the Theresienstadt transit camp in German-occupied Sudetenland. She was the only member of her family to survive the camps.
After the war, she moved to New York in 1946 with her husband, Adolph Friedländer, whom she met at the camp, only to return to Berlin six and half decades later in 2010 after his death.
The centenarian has given hundreds of talks about her life during the Holocaust under Nazi Germany.
Two years ago, she was honored with a lifetime achievement award by the German president as she hit the century mark.
“We cannot change what happened, but it must never be allowed to happen again,” she said at the award ceremony in Berlin.
