Tuesday, May 13, 2025

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Matthew 5:8

Dear church,

I find it hard to pass on a true story of inspiration and so I would like to introduce you to someone you may or may not have heard of – a giant of humanity. It was fitting that Margot Friedländer died on the day of liberation, the formal end of WW II, May 9, 2025, on the 80th anniversary of that event. She was 103 years old and a celebrity in Berlin where she was born and where she died.

Hers was a sad story like millions of others, filled with horror, loss and humiliation. She was a Holocaust survivor and lost all her family members to the enemies of humanity. She met her husband in a concentration camp. When they were lucky enough to survive, they moved to the United States as fast as they could, starting a new life, trying to forget and vowing never to return to that place of horror. Adding insult to injury, her husband’s birth name was Adolf, which he turned into “Eddie”. When Eddie passed and Margot approached her nineties, something happened that changed her life yet again. A documentary film crew approached her to come to Berlin to chronicle her life and her survival story. I don’t know how many nights she had to sleep over this one, but she agreed.

Well, she ended up staying in Berlin, I think because she felt that there was a purpose for her in the old country. An energetic nonagenarian, she became a well-known speaker and historic witness, who combined this with a love for the young people in the old country whom she met in schools and at special events. Her main teaching consisted of two words: “be human,” which probably was three words in German, “Sei ein Mensch.” Mensch is the German/Yiddish word that sums up all ethics. To be human means to be kind and forgiving and to see other human beings with dignity, the exact opposite of what took place in the Germany of Margot Friedländer’s youth. During her last years in Berlin she became a celebrity, appeared on the cover of Vogue and touched many people with a message of reconciliation and kindness. It is wonderful when a person can reach into the depth of her own heart and forgive and become a symbol of reconciliation. Thank you, Margot!

You can read her story in the obituary section of many newspapers or by looking her up with a search engine. Here is a link to the New York Times obituary. Margot Friedländer, Holocaust Survivor Who Found Her Voice, Dies at 103 - The New York Times