Holocaust survivors: Margot Friedländer receives an honorary doctorate from the Free University of Berlin

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Commitment into old age: Margot Friedländer performing at a Berlin school (archive photo from 2017)

Photo: Britta Pedersen / dpa

Holocaust survivor Margot Friedländer (100) has been awarded an honorary doctorate by Freie Universität Berlin.

The cultural scientist Aleida Assmann explained that she embodies in an outstanding way a form of democratic education that appeals to the mind and the heart in equal measure.

Friedländer's impetus is so important at a time "when fewer and fewer contemporary witnesses of the Holocaust are still speaking out and on the other hand the composition of society is changing rapidly," the university quoted from the laudatory speech.

Anyone can become a secondary witness.

But young people also need to be encouraged, empowered and educated.

"The schools and universities have a share of the responsibility here," says Assmann.

Friedländer's honorary doctorate was proposed by the Department of History and Cultural Studies.

Friedländer has already received the Federal Cross of Merit for her commitment as a contemporary witness, she is an honorary citizen of Berlin.

»Don't call it homesickness«

Her family was deported to Auschwitz and murdered.

She herself was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

After the war she went to the USA with her husband Adolf Friedländer in 1946.

A few years after Friedländer's death, Margot Friedländer returned to her old hometown of Berlin.

The film »Don't call it homesickness« and her book »Try to make your life« tell her story.

In her work as a contemporary witness, young people are particularly important to her.

mamk/dpa