"Of hope and betrayal, of moral courage in the midst of terror and of the absolute will to survive"

As part of the special exhibition: Erinnerte Gegenwart. Documents and installations on Theresienstadt

Margot Friedländer is a Holocaust survivor and 96 years old. Her parents and her brother were murdered in Auschwitz. She experienced persecution and war in the Berlin underground and in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. After this horror she emigrated to the USA in 1946. Margot Friedländer lived in New York until she returned to Germany after more than sixty years.

Together with the writer Malin Schwerdtfeger, she tells her dramatic story "of hope and betrayal, of civil courage in the midst of terror and of the absolute will to survive". In 2008 her autobiography was published by Rowohlt Verlag: "Versuche, Dein Leben zu machen". These were the last words her mother could address to her.

In front of hundreds of school classes and at countless events, Margot Friedländer read from her life memories, discussed with the young people and answered the listeners' never-ending questions. Week after week she tirelessly confronted her own memories. She has made it her life's work to tell young people her story so that they can tell it to others, because soon there will be no more contemporary witnesses of the Holocaust.