Award: Peace Prize to Holocaust-surviving Margot Friedländer

The Holocaust survivor Margot Friedländer was awarded the “Special Prize of the International Prize of the Westphalian Peace” for the first time. Friedländer’s long-standing commitment to human cooperation is recognized, said Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who handed over the price in Münster to the 103-year-old. Her commitment to forgetting, for humanity and tolerance, for peace and democracy is persistent, and comes out of inner strength and quality.

Margot Friedländer was born in Berlin in 1921. Her father died in a extermination camp in 1942, her mother and brother were murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Margot Friedländer himself was deported to Theresienstadt in 1944. She was the only one to survive the Holocaust in her direct family. After more than 60 years in exile in New York, she returned to Berlin at the age of 88 and accepted German citizenship again.

Appreciation and a promise of the Federal President

“However, your message is not a billing with this country, billing with Germany – a settlement to which you are right to everything,” said Steinmeier directly to Margot Friedländer. The head of state called for those who are calling for a line to be remembered by the Holocaust. “Responsibility is not a conclusion. We see this today, especially when democracy has been contested as much as it has not been in eighty years.”

The honored has a clear message

Friedländer said she spoke “for everyone who has been murdered because people did not respond as humans”. At the moment, peace is “threatened in the outside and inside”. Everyone has the obligation to live for peaceful coexistence, for respect and democracy. “Because what happened at the time must never happen again,” warned the Holocaust survivor.

Your message is: “We are all the same. Be people!” Before her speech on stage, she said quietly to Steinmeier after his appreciation: “I was so touched.”

NRW Prime Minister Wüst wants a stronger Europe

Similar to Steinmeier, NRW Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst also called for the 2nd Westphalian Peace Conference: “We have to set up Germany and Europe more. For this, Europe has to become more independent when it comes to defending its freedom and values.”

In Münster, peace and security came to the center, she brought together “large international voices to discuss the challenges of our time”. With the Charles Prize in Aachen and the Peace Prize in Münster, NRW has two important institutions that made an important contribution to international understanding, “said the CDU politician of the German Press Agency.

Several hundred participants had come – on topics such as the drifting apart of the United States and Europe or the consequences of the Russian war of attack against Ukraine. However, since a black and red coalition is currently being forged in Berlin, several prominent politicians such as CDU boss Friedrich Merz or SPD boss Lars Klingbeil had canceled at short notice.