THE HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR WHO CAME OUT
Margot was born in Hellenthal, Germany, a town close to the Belgian border.
Her parents were Karl Heumann and Johanna Falkenstein. They ran a successful general store in the town.
Margot had a younger sister called Lore. Their grandfather lived on the opposite side of the street from them.
When she was just four, the family moved to Lippstadt. Margot learned to swim in the River Lippe.
Aged nine, Margot and her family moved to the German city of Bielefeld. Their large extended family moved with them. By now, her father was working for the ‘Aid Association of German Jews’, whilst still running the shop.
In 1938, with no warning, Margot and Lore were excluded from their school with absolutely no warning. This was because of a new Nazi directive banning Jewish children from state schools. Instead, they were enrolled into a Jewish school. All her new teachers had been removed from their previous posts.
Everybody was forced to wear a yellow star.
Jews were forbidden to do various things. Margot was a bit of a rebel and ignored the new rules, continuing to do all the things she enjoyed such as swimming or going to the theatre. She either took off her star or covered it up.
Margot soon realised she was attracted to other girls, rather than to boys. She kept this very quiet.
Things got much worse for the family after Kristallnacht. A sign was put up on their shop saying ‘Don’t buy from Jews’. Pretty soon, business dried up and her father was forced to shut the store.
After that, it was a hand-to-mouth existence.
In 1942, all Bielefeld Jews were deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto. This was the Nazi’s ‘model’ concentration camp, where conditions were supposedly better than elsewhere, so the Nazis could pretend to the rest of the world that their camps were not so bad after all.
The Heumann family were sent to this camp as a ‘special privilege’ because her father Karl had won an iron cross during the First World War.
Margot was placed in a youth home, where she was given better food and accommodation than many others of her age. Her sister Lore was placed in a different home. Margot was still able to see her parents every day, but they were living in far dirtier, unsanitary conditions.
The only positive thing about her time in Theresienstadt was that shows were put on, and Margot developed a love of opera. She also loved the sense of community within the ghetto.
There, Margot met Ditha (known as Dita) Neumann from Vienna. Both Dita’s parents were dead, but she had come to the camp with an aunt. The two girls became extremely friendly.
Margot’s father, Karl, was caught stealing extra food for his family – and all the Heumanns were sent to Auschwitz as a punishment. A few days later Dita and her aunt followed them.
There, they were subjected to forced labour selection. People were allowed to volunteer. Dita and her aunt chose to go. The Heumanns decided not to, as they considered Lore at thirteen to be too young. Now Margot made the hardest decision of her life. She chose to be selected.
Her mother was deeply upset, but her father blessed her. As she was taken away with the other two hundred ‘chosen’ women, she saw tears in his eyes.
The women were all forced to shower. They had heard stories about Auschwitz showers. “Thank goodness it was only water that came out.”
The women were then transported by train to Neuengamme Concentration Camp near Hamburg. Margot never saw her parents or her sister again.
When they arrived at Neuengamme, there was absolutely nothing there. They had to dig foundations and build the camp themselves, as well as some nearby accommodation for German citizens. It was very hard physical work, especially for two sixteen-year-old girls.
The Forced Labour sections were sent to smaller satellite camps around Hamburg. She worked in an asbestos factory at Neugraben, dug trenches at Tiefstack, and worked at Dessauer Ufer (another concentration camp) as well.
There was the occasional happy moment. “I remember the most beautiful sunrises over the Elbe, that we saw on the boat on the way to work.”
Back at the camp, Margot slept in the same bed as Dita. It was very overcrowded in their barracks. However, the girls sleeping together didn’t go down well with some of the other women – “It’s not natural”.
Dita’s aunt stood up for them – “They are just girls. They are only sixteen.” Margot was saddened by the fact she faced prejudice not only from the Nazis but from her fellow inmates. “We didn’t actually have sex. Very close to it, but no sex.” She said they were best friends, not lovers.
Dita also had a boyfriend and Margot admitted feeling jealous.
She had no other friends in the camp apart from Dita and her aunt – “It was dog eat dog.”
Many of the women found the only way they could get extra rations was through flirting with the male guards.
Margot found some kindness in the concentration camp. One German family who lived nearby, brought her a bowl of porridge each morning. At midday, one of the German guards always shared his lunch with her, with no expectations of any return favours.
There was also an Italian prisoner-of-war camp next to theirs. These prisoners received Red Cross parcels. One of them called Aldo, shared his food with Margot and Dita, passing it across the wire with a rope and pulley system. She never knew his full name – or if he survived the war.
In the camp, there was a constant threat from Allied bombing. Over one hundred prisoners were killed. As the war grew closer to the end, the bombing intensified. Margot said, “The more they bombed, the happier we got.”
In April 1945, the Nazis shut down Neuengamme. All the inmates were forced on a two-day 100 kilometre march to Bergen–Belsen. Margot did it without a pair of shoes.
When she got there, Margot was horrified by what she saw. “I got the shock of my life. The corpses were piled on top of each other as high as trees, on both sides of the road. It was incredible.”
Bergen – Belsen was liberated by British soldiers on the 15th April 1945. Margot was suffering from typhus and weighed just seventy seven pounds. She was hospitalised for two months.
Meanwhile, Allied soldiers ‘liberated’ Neuengamme on the 3rd May. They found it totally deserted.
Margot was taken by the Red Cross to Sweden to recover. Dita was left behind.
Years later, Margot said of her relationship with Dita, “Because of my caring for another human being, somehow, we never lost our dignity and we remained people.”
Dita emigrated to the USA, where she married a pathologist and had three children.
Margot spent three years in Sweden. She learned the language and got her first ‘proper’ girlfriend whilst there.
An uncle persuaded Margot to go to New York City. He was trying to get all surviving members of the family together. She intended to stay one year but liberal attitudes to sexuality encouraged her to stay.
In the USA, Margot dropped an ‘n’ off her surname to make it sound more anglicised.
Margot re-established contact with Dita and they remained friends for life.
Margot initially worked in a button factory, followed by becoming a nanny and a waitress. She always had the concentration camp tattoo on her arm to remind her of the past.
She started a relationship with Lu Burke, a copyeditor on the New Yorker magazine. Lu taught Margot the English language.
Margot went to City College in New York and then worked in advertising for ‘Doyle Dane Bernbach’, with whom she stayed until her retirement.
She loved her regular visits to the New York Metropolitan Opera.
Margot always wanted a family. In 1952, she married Charles Mendelson, an accountant in her office. This led to her break up with Lu the following year.
Margot had two children: Jill and Dan. She refused to bring them up as religious because she no longer believed in God. “If there had been a God, this could not have happened.”
She hired a black housekeeper, which was very unusual in the USA of the 1950s, and this enabled Margot to carry on working.
She also had an affair with the woman next door. Both of their husbands thought the women were just really good friends.
By the 1970s, Margot’s husband Charles had become a gambling addict and was increasingly violent and abusive at home. Margot divorced him.
She was also suffering from severe depression and had been seeing a psychiatrist for years.
In 1988, Margot decided to have a new start and moved to Arizona, claiming she could no longer cope with the cold weather in New York. She also ‘came out’.
Margot was convinced nobody knew she was gay. “I was a very good actress.” However, when she came out, nobody in the family was in the slightest bit surprised.
Margot lived in Green Valley in Arizona – right in the desert. She was accompanied by her dog, Fiona.
In 2011, Dita was dying of cancer. Margot rushed to her bedside. She only just got there in time and held Dita’s hand, when she died.
Margot told Dita she was, “The love of my life.”
Later, Margot was interviewed extensively by Anna Hajkova, a lecturer at Warwick University. The two became close friends. Anna said, “I think it was tragic that homophobic prejudice prevented a number of queer Jewish women who survived concentration camps, from leaving testimonies of their lives – hence this is why Margot is so important.”
2020 saw the commemoration 75th anniversary of the liberation of Neuengamme Camp. Margot, along with the few other survivors was invited to the ceremony. Nearly 43,000 people had died in this concentration camp.
Margot gave a speech to an audience largely made up of young people. She was vociferous against right-wing politics. “If you don’t do anything, no-one will.”
“We need to raise awareness of this again and defend society against attacks from the right.”
Margot absolutely hated Donald Trump.
In 2021, there was a play about her life performed at the Brighton Fringe – ‘The Amazing Life of Margot Heuman’.
In one of her last interviews, Margot reflected on her experience in the concentration camps. “It was absolute hell. What I remember most is my friendship and love for Dita.”
Covid and old age prevented any more visits to Neuengamme. The commemoration website said, “We never saw Margot again, but we are very grateful that we were able to meet her. We will miss her.”
There are very few testimonies from gay people who survived concentration camps, and Margot’s is the first from a woman. She said there would have been many more gay women who died – or have just not dared tell their stories.
Her home town of Bielefeld has laid s stones in memory of Margot and her family.
RIP – Resisting Immense Prejudice
