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Germany Lays to Rest Margot Friedlaender, Holocaust Survivor Key to Remembrance Culture
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz bows in front of the coffin before the funeral ceremony of Holocaust survivor Margot Friedlaender at the cemetery of the Jewish community in Berlin Weissensee, Germany, May 15, 2025. Photo: Kay Nietfeld/Pool via REUTERS
Margot Friedlaender, a Holocaust survivor who played an important role in Germany‘s remembrance culture ensuring the country’s Nazi past is not played down with the passage of time, was laid to rest on Thursday after dying last week aged 103.
A funeral ceremony took place at a Jewish cemetery and Holocaust memorial site in Weissensee, Berlin, the city where Friedlaender was born and to which she eventually returned.
Among the mourners were President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who bowed to her coffin which was covered in pink and white flowers.
Friedlaender died on May 9, almost exactly 80 years after the Soviet Red Army liberated the Theresienstadt concentration camp where she was imprisoned.
For Steinmeier, she embodied the “miracle of reconciliation” between Germany and Jews around the world, while Merz called her “one of the strongest voices of our time: for peaceful coexistence, against antisemitism and forgetting.”
Friedlaender was born in Berlin in 1921 to Auguste and Arthur Bendheim, a businessman. Her parents split in 1937, and Auguste tried in vain to emigrate with Margot and her younger brother, Ralph, in the face of intensifying persecution of Jews.
Her father was deported in August 1942 to the Auschwitz death camp where he was murdered. In early 1943, on the day Margot, Ralph and Auguste were set to make a final attempt to leave Germany, Ralph was arrested by the Gestapo secret police.
Auguste was not with her son at the time but turned herself in to accompany him in deportation to Auschwitz where both later died. Margot went underground and managed to elude the Gestapo by dying her hair red and having her nose operated on.
But she was finally apprehended in April 1944 by Jewish “catchers” — Jews recruited to track down others in hiding in exchange for security — and sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in what is the Czech Republic today.
She survived Theresienstadt and met her future husband, Adolf Friedlaender, there in early 1945, shortly before the liberation of all Nazi camps at the end of World War II, and they emigrated to New York in 1946.
In New York, Margot worked as a dressmaker and travel agent, while her husband held senior posts in Jewish organizations. Both vowed never to return to Germany.
After her husband’s death Margot revisited Berlin in 2003, among a number of Holocaust survivors invited back by the German capital’s governing Senate. She moved back for good in 2010, at age 88, regaining her German citizenship and giving talks about her Holocaust experiences, particularly in German schools.
“Not only did she extend a hand to us Germans — she came back; she gave us the gift of her tremendously generous heart and her unfailing humanity,” Steinmeier said this week.
Friedlaender‘s autobiography, Try to Make Your Life — a Jewish Girl Hiding in Nazi Berlin, was published in 2008, titled after the final message that her mother managed to pass on to Margot.
She was awarded Germany‘s Federal Cross of Merit in 2011 and in 2014, the Margot Friedlaender Prize was created to support students in Holocaust remembrance and encourage young people to show moral courage.
In a 2021 interview with Die Zeit magazine marking her centenary, Friedlaender reflected on the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party’s rise since 2015 on the back of anti-immigrant sentiment, saying it made her uncomfortable.
“I remember how excited the 10-year-old boys were back then [in Nazi era] when they were allowed to march. When you saw how people absorbed that – you don’t forget that,” she said.
“I always say: I love people, and I think there is something good in everyone, but equally I think there is something bad in everyone.”
The post Germany Lays to Rest Margot Friedlaender, Holocaust Survivor Key to Remembrance Culture first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.