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Contemporary witness Friedländer:

Photo: DER SPIEGEL

Holocaust survivor Margot Friedländer sees parallels in the current social debate to the time before the National Socialists came to power. "That's how it started back then," said the 102-year-old contemporary witness in the SPIEGEL top-level conversation with moderator Markus Feldenkirchen.

“The hatred that was incited back then has now become loud again,” said Friedländer. "They are people who don't recognize people as people." When asked whether she was worried about the AfD's success, Friedländer said: "Of course." She would "under no circumstances" vote for the party. The “direction” that right-wing parties are currently taking is “not humane.”

Friedländer's parents and her brother were murdered in Nazi concentration camps. She herself survived her internment in the Theresienstadt concentration camp and was honored many times for her years of memorial work, including the Federal Cross of Merit.

“I knew there were good Germans”

In the SPIEGEL talk, Friedländer talked about her eventful life, her emigration to the USA and her relationship with her birthplace, Berlin.

"I'm so happy to have been born in such a beautiful city," said Friedländer. All the suffering she experienced there during the National Socialist era doesn't change that. "I was born here. It is my home.

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She also received help from Germans in Berlin, who offered her shelter at great risk to her own life. “I knew there were good Germans,” said Friedländer.

After the end of the war, Friedländer emigrated to the USA with her husband Adolph, another Holocaust survivor - she actually never wanted to set foot in Germany again. She has been living in Berlin again since 2010.

"It's for those who didn't make it"

Friedländer justified her tireless efforts, even in old age, to continue to remind people of the Nazis' crimes against humanity through lectures at schools, with an obligation to the victims of the Holocaust. »It's for those who didn't make it. Which shouldn’t be forgotten.”

She wants to pass on her experiences by talking to young people: “You should be the contemporary witnesses that we can no longer be for much longer. It is in your hands that what happened never happens again." Her work enables her to deal with what she has experienced: "Speaking helps because you listen to me!"

The SPIEGEL top-level conversation with Margot Friedländer is available on SPIEGEL.de on Wednesday evening from 8 p.m.

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