Witness to humanity – Margot Friedländer receives honorary doctorate

Physically, the petite woman on the stage is almost dwarfed by the large certificate with which she is being presented. However, as university president Prof. Dr. Günter M. Ziegler and dean of the Department of History and Cultural Studies Prof. Dr. Eun-Jeung Lee present her with the honorary doctorate, it is clear that in terms of emotional stature, it is the woman who dwarfs the certificate. The ceremony is being held in honor of Margot Friedländer – centenarian, Holocaust survivor, and, as of this moment, honorary doctor at Freie Universität Berlin. She is “deeply moved” by the honor, says Friedländer in her acceptance speech. She recalls her mother, who was murdered in Auschwitz, and the last message she gave her daughter: “Try to make your life meaningful.” Friedländer took her mother’s message to heart. To this day, she visits schools, gives lectures, and speaks on talk shows and before the European Parliament. She repeats her message at Freie Universität: “What people did because they didn’t recognize people as people must never happen again!” When asked if her public life is sometimes a burden, Friedländer shakes her head vigorously, “I can pass on to young people the message that they too should try to make their lives meaningful. My brother Ralf never had that chance.”

Amy Gutmann Speaks at Freie Universität

With open arms, new U.S. ambassador Amy Gutmann arrives in the country that her Jewish father was forced to flee in 1934. “My father taught me how important it is to stand up against all forms of hate and discrimination,” said the 72-year-old diplomat at her first major public appearance as U.S. ambassador in front of almost one hundred guests in the Henry Ford Building of Freie Universität. Students of the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies were in attendance, in addition to many representatives of the media and German-American institutions. Gutmann formulated three goals for her time as ambassador: to strengthen transatlantic relations, to defend democracy, and to make innovation more inclusive so that as many people as possible can contribute to overcoming global problems. With regard to the commitment of young people in both Germany and the U.S. to the green economy, human rights, and humanitarian aid, Gutmann expressed the desire to engage in more dialogue with the younger generation. The former University of Pennsylvania president and professor immediately followed up her words with action: “All you have to do is get in touch – we will provide a network,” said the ambassador, encouraging a student to contact the U.S. Embassy with her own suggestions.

The River of Life

The Mokhotlong River meanders for kilometers through the rugged highlands of Lesotho. As Africa’s second-longest river, it supplies many millions of people with water, who rely on it for agriculture and much more. However, climate change, grazing, and erosion in Lesotho’s highlands, a natural water reservoir thousands of years old, could soon make the Mokhotlong, a lifeline for many in southern Africa, flow more sparsely. Doctoral candidate in geography Venise Gummersbach and master’s student Jana Frenzel, both from Freie Universität, traveled to Lesotho to use drone imagery and gather insights into land use as part of the research project “The Lesotho Highlands – a Key Region for Understanding Climate Change.” Their aim was to prove, among other things, that the Lesotho Plateau – 3,500 meters high in some places – was not glaciated, even during the last ice age about 12,000 years ago. The two scientists formed part of a large team that also included paleontologist Prof. Dr. Frank Riedel and geographer Dr. Kai Hartmann from Freie Universität. The trip afforded them many new insights, and the research group will soon be able to trace climate change in the scarcely explored highlands of Lesotho even more precisely.

Home Win for Steffen Mensching

Who would have thought a middle-aged man in a grey cap would cause such a stir! Steffen Mensching, the man at the podium, is the first recipient of the Stiftung Preußische Seehandlung’s “Berlin Literature Prize” to actually come from Berlin. In his acceptance speech at the award ceremony on March 30, 2022, in the Rotes Rathaus, Mensching emphasized his Berlin roots: “The city’s wit and slang shaped my thinking and speaking, and its complex and complicated history urged me to write.” Born in 1958, the poet, novelist, and theater director made a name for himself with his observations of the Fall of the Berlin Wall in East Germany, which he brought to Berlin’s stages as early as the 1980s in the form of satirical productions such as “Letztes aus der DaDaeR” together with like-minded contemporary Hans-Eckardt Wenzel. As is tradition, the winner of the “Berlin Prize for Literature” also receives the post of “Visiting Professor for German-Language Poetics” at the Peter Szondi Institute of Comparative Literature at Freie Universität. Here, Mensching will be offering a literature workshop for students in the summer semester of 2022. He is looking forward to the intellectual exchange, says Mensching, who claimed that he will probably learn more than his students.