NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) -- Vogue Germany's July/August 2024 love-themed issue is breaking fashion magazine norms by not featuring a model, actor, or some other public figure on its cover: instead, the cover subject is Margot Friedländer, a 102-year-old Holocaust survivor from Berlin, whose family was murdered by the Nazis during one of Europe's darkest and most genocidal chapters.
“The most positive person I know is on this issue’s cover: Margot Friedländer," said Kerstin Weng, Vogue Germany's head of editorial content. "To many she is known as a Holocaust survivor. But she not only survived the Nazis, she also overcame betrayal and loss. She would have all reason to be bitter, but remains open-minded and refuses to take sides. She stands up against forgetting and for humanity and togetherness."
Weng added, "At 102, she seeks to engage with the younger generation and proves that dialogue is still possible.”
Friedländer's mother and brother were murdered at Auschwitz in Poland, while she was deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia.
Friedländer met her future husband in the concentration camp and the pair married after liberation. They lived in New York City for more than sixty years after emigrating to the U.S. in 1946. Her husband died in 2010 at 88. She then moved back to Berlin, where she is a Holocaust educator.
Friedländer radiates positivity in the article, but says of the rise in antisemitism, "I am appalled. Don't look at what separates you. Look at what unites you. Be human. Be reasonable."