ICH BIN! MARGOT FRIEDLÄNDER (original title)

UFA DOCUMENTARY • Documentary & Factual • ZDF • November 7, 2023 at 20.15 on ZDF

She is now 101 years old, a Holocaust survivor and lives in Berlin. The planned ZDF docudrama ICH BIN! MARGOT FRIEDLÄNDER traces her eventful story. Memories of Margot Friedländer, who still describes her experiences very movingly despite her advanced age, form the guiding thread. The first interviews have taken place. In the docudrama, actress Julia Anna Grob portrays the protagonist in her younger years.

Margot Friedländer ‘s appeal to young people: “I have come back to talk to you, to shake your hand, but also to ask you to become the witnesses we will not be able to be for much longer,” says Margot Friedländer: “It is for you. What was, that was, we can no longer change it. It must never happen again. For you! For your children, for your descendants.”

Marc Lepetit, Managing Director and Producer of UFA Documentary: “Our docudrama “Ich bin! Margot Friedländer” tries to keep memories of this period of German history alive and to work against forgetting. The production demands a great deal of responsibility towards our contemporary witness Margot Friedländer, her life and above all her appeal to future generations.”

Interviews and sequences for the film were shot together with Margot Friedländer and Julia Anna Grob. In addition to Iris Berben and Charly Hübner, Herbert Knaup and Axel Prahl also made guest appearances. The actual scenic filming took place in June and July 2023. The film will be broadcast as a special program highlight on ZDF on the 85th anniversary of the “November Pogroms” on 7 November 2023 at 20:15.

To the content

Margot Friedländer was born in Berlin in 1921. Her mother and brother were sent to the Auschwitz extermination camp in 1943. Margot, who was 22 at the time, went into hiding, dyed her hair and even had her nose operated on – until she was caught by so-called “snatchers” in the spring of 1944 and deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto. Margot survived. After liberation, she marries Adolph Friedländer, an acquaintance from Berlin whom she had met again in Theresienstadt. The couple emigrated to the USA, where they built a new life for themselves. It was only after her husband’s death that Margot visited her old hometown in 2003 at the invitation of the Berlin Senate. She has lived in Berlin again since 2010 and regularly visits schools to tell young people about her life.

Further information

I AM! MARGOT FRIEDLÄNDER is a production of UFA Documentary on behalf of ZDF. The producers are Gwendolin Szyszkowitz-Schwingel, Marc Lepetit and Nico Hofmann. Producers are Rodica Pietsch and Simon Sacha. The editors are Stefan Brauburger and Anja Greulich (ZDF). The screenplay was written by Hannah and Raymond Ley, who is also directing.