"I am! Margot Friedländer": "It took us years to become human again"

teleshow "I am! Margot Friedländer": "It took us years to become human again" Article by Eric Leimann • 1 day) Margot Friedländer and actress Julia Anna Grob, who plays the 101-year-old Holocaust survivor in the ZDF docudrama "I am! Margot Friedländer": What was the actress's most important question to her role model? The 102-year-old Berliner Margot Friedländer is one of the last Holocaust survivors. In the ZDF docudrama "I am! Margot Friedländer" she tells her own story, which is also revived as a heart-stopping television play with many stars in small roles. Margot Friedländer, an American at the time, only began writing her story after the death of her husband Adolf in 1997. The New Yorker was already in her 70s when a "creative writing" course gave her the idea of telling the story of a life that is nothing short of incredible. Adolf and Margot, German Jews from Berlin, left for America by ship in 1946. They had previously met again in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, which they both survived. Their first encounter had taken place at the Jewish Cultural Association's theater in Berlin, where the very young seamstress Margot, then with the last name Bendheim, was responsible for costumes and sometimes helped out as an extra. An important, even beautiful memory in the life of one of the last survivors of the Holocaust - Margot Friedländer, now 102 years old. The docudrama specialists Raymond (writer and director) and Hannah Ley (book) have now made the film "I am! Margot Friedländer". Newcomer Julia Anna Grob is convincing in the role of 21-year-old Margot. But the real Margot Friedländer also talks about her life in short interview passages with impressive clarity. After her parents separated in 1937, Margot lived with her mother and younger brother Ralph in a so-called "Jewish apartment". For too long, the Bendheims thought that the Nazis would not last long and postponed their departure to a safe country. Young Margot was doing forced labor when her little brother was picked up from home by the Gestapo. The mother then volunteered so as not to leave the little boy alone. Both were murdered in Auschwitz. Margot then hid in Berlin. She lived in 16 different hiding places for 15 months before she was arrested in 1944, probably after a tip from a friend, and taken to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. “Don’t Call It Homesick” as the initial spark In 2008, Margot Friedländer's autobiography "Try to make your life" was published based on a sentence that her mother had left her as a farewell letter. Friedländer has been living in Berlin again since 2010. Despite her old age, she has since been traveling to schools and other educational institutions to tell her story. She has received many awards for this. In the docudrama, which functions as an oppressive study of human depths in the betrayal and torture scenes, but also as an encouragement of humanistic strength and reappraisal, another monument to her life is now being set. The American filmmaker Thomas Halaczinsky had already shot "Don't Call It Homesickness" in 2004, which sparked great interest in Margot Friedländer's life and ultimately made her an "active witness". In the Leys' German film, the old lady - still very clear and determined - now has her say again. And Friedländer also told her actress when she was younger, Julia Anna Grob, how she remembers her story herself. Numerous guest stars such as Axel Prahl, Charly Hübner, Iris Berben and Erbert Knaup play small guest roles in the film. But it is Friedländer's statements himself that ultimately stick. Filmmaker Ley asks her in an interview whether she was in love when she married her husband shortly after their liberation from the concentration camp. Looking back on the time after the traumatizing terror of twelve years of Nazi atrocities, the 101-year-old has little use for the term "in love". She tells the camera that it took them years to become human again. Betrayed by “Gripper Jews”? It's moments like this when it becomes clear: only women and men who have faced the Holocaust themselves can tell stories like this. "I am! Margot Friedländer" finds the right mix of concise documentary minutes and the oppressively staged Berlin game of hide-and-seek played by young Margot, which tells the multifaceted story of fear and will to survive, good helpers, but also those who took advantage of the young Jewish woman's situation .