Margot Friedländer, a 102-year-old Holocaust survivor whose household was murdered in Auschwitz, would appear an unlikely — even radical — selection to guide a trend model that routinely options engaging fashions and celebrities. However the ageing, white-haired Friedländer is Vogue Germany’s newest cowl star, a distinction she appears to put on as calmly because the tailor-made coat she fashions within the journal’s July/August difficulty.
One of many world’s oldest and maybe best-known Holocaust survivors, Friedländer isn’t any stranger to fame. She has met with world leaders similar to Angela Merkel, the previous chancellor of Germany, and rubbed shoulders with celebrities similar to Helen Mirren.
Ms. Friedländer (née Bendheim), who lives in Berlin, is a vociferous advocate of Holocaust remembrance. She has made it her mission to go to a whole lot of faculties throughout Germany, urging her younger viewers to not overlook the traumas of the previous or maintain on to the grievances that proceed to polarize folks.
Within the interview with Vogue Germany, as in these conversations, she expresses concern in regards to the rise of right-wing populism and anti-Semitism in Germany and around the globe.
Its multifaceted message resonates with Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief and world editorial director at Vogue and chief content material officer at Condé Nast. Though the American version of Vogue didn’t function Friedländer on the duvet and has but to function a canopy star of her type, Wintour, in an e mail, referred to as the German Vogue cowl “good and galvanizing.”
“Margot Friedländer is an excellent and vital topic,” stated Wintour, “given the political currents throughout Europe.”
Individuals like Ms. Friedländer “are the final dwelling testimony to a darkish interval in historical past,” stated Masha Pearl, govt director of Blue Card, a corporation in New York that gives monetary and emotional help to Holocaust survivors in america. “It’s crucial to boost consciousness for the remaining survivors, whose numbers are dwindling,” she added.
At 102, Ms. Friedländer is a number of many years forward of the older American Vogue cowl stars, a bunch that features clothier Miuccia Prada, who appeared on the cover of the March magazine at 74 this 12 months. However Friedländer just isn’t the oldest individual to seem on the duvet of Vogue: Apo Whang-oda tattoo artist, appeared on the April cowl of the Philippine version on the age of 106 final 12 months.
Friedländer was 12 years previous when Hitler got here to energy, and was in his early 20s when the Gestapo arrived in 1943 to reunite his household, taking his mom on one of many notorious Nazi transports to Auschwitz.
Mrs. Friedländer was not at dwelling when her household was detained. Quickly after, she dyed her hair, started carrying a cross and was hidden for 13 months by anti-Nazi sympathizers whose names she was by no means allowed to know, she instructed The Ahead in 2013. article.
In 1944, she was captured by the Gestapo and deported to the Theresienstadt focus camp in what’s now the Czech Republic. There, she witnessed and suffered Nazi atrocities. She additionally met Adolf Friedländer and, after liberation in 1945, married him in a standard Jewish ceremony. The next 12 months, the couple emigrated to america, settling in Queens, New York.
It was solely after her husband’s dying, in 1997, that Friedländer considered exploring her life expertise to jot down a memoir. Whereas writing it, she was approached by a documentary filmmaker, who satisfied her to inform her story on digital camera – and to return to Berlin within the early 2000s to movie the undertaking.
The documentary, “Do not Name It Heimweh,” was launched in 2004, and her e book, “’Attempt to Make Your Life’: a Jewish Lady Hiding in Nazi Berlin,” in 2008. Two years later, Ms. at virtually 80 years previous, he returned to Berlin.
Since then, she has addressed 1000’s of individuals, talking, as she instructed Vogue Germany, “on behalf of victims who can not converse for themselves.” Her message just isn’t exactly one in every of forgiveness, however of resistance and the loving embrace of humanity.
Ms. Friedländer instructed Vogue Germany that because the starting of Israel-Hamas Warmany younger folks have requested her whether or not she helps Israel or Palestine. Her reply is to not take sides. “Don’t take a look at the issues that separate you,” she tells them. “Take into consideration the issues that unite you, that deliver you collectively.”
She is grateful to have “made it” and particularly grateful, she instructed Vogue Germany, that she took severely the recommendation of her mom, who, whereas being deported by the Nazis, hurriedly left a notice for Friedländer. In it she wrote: “Attempt to enhance your life.”
“I’m grateful,” stated Mrs. Friedländer, “as a result of, sure, I do.”
