I could have picked any name out of millions of victims to write about today. So why did I select Margot Frank-Cohen? No particular reason other than that she would have been 100 years old today.
A few decades ago, it would have been utter nonsense to talk about someone’s 100th birthday. Hardly anyone would reach that age. However, today there are more centenarians than there have ever been. It could have been possible for Margot to be alive today, but as you can see in her wedding picture, the people around her all have a star on their clothes. We all know the colour of that star was yellow and used to identify the Jews.
The word on their stars reads, Jood, the Dutch word for Jew. Margot wasn’t Dutch. She was born in Bocholt, a city northwest of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, part of the district Borken. It is situated 4 km (2½ miles) south of the border with the Netherlands.
When she moved to the Netherlands, I don’t know. I presume it was in 1939, the same as her parents moved to Amsterdam. Or it could be the case that her parents moved because Margot already lived in the Netherlands. In 1939, when Margot was 18, she married Hein Lindeman. The marriage didn’t last long. However, the marriage produced a daughter, Sophia Juliana Senta Lindeman, born on 10 February 1940.
When you look at the dates 1939 and February 1940, things were still normal for the Jews living in the Netherlands. It was only in May 1940, after the German occupation, things started to change gradually for the Jews.
As stated earlier, the marriage between Margot and Hein didn’t last long, they divorced in 1941.
This is the astonishing bit, neither of them gave up on love. Despite the fact so many of their friends and families were already deported, both Margot and Hein re-married. Hein married Alida (Ali) Druyf in May 1942. Just four months later, Alida was murdered in Auschwitz on 28 September 1942. Hein was murdered in Sobibor on 23 April 1943.
Margot married Siegfried Frank in 1942 in Camp Westerbork. The picture at the start of the blog is from their wedding day. Margot was murdered at Auschwitz, together with her 4-year-old daughter on 6 October 1944. They were put on transport Transport XXIV/7, no. 194 on 6 September 1944, from Westerbork to the Netherlands. Then to Terezín via transport En, no. 47 on 10 October 1944, to Auschwitz.
The irony is that her husband died on the 2nd anniversary of her first marriage. He was murdered in Buchenwald on 23 April 1945, just a few days after its liberation.
Despite Margot’s young age, she had already lived a fuller life than most people. It was a full life, only to be interrupted by an evil ideology.
Sources
https://www.holocaust.cz/en/database-of-victims/victim/149922-margot-frank-cohen/
https://www.joodsmonument.nl/nl/page/195704/margot-frank-cohen
https://www.geni.com/people/Margot-Frank/6000000164906549161
https://www.joodsmonument.nl/nl/page/195703/sophia-juliana-senta-lindeman
https://www.geni.com/people/Siegfried-Frank/6000000065602842922
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