Margot Friedländer Prize for Munich Professor Guy Katz and war graves group of a European school

The Munich university professor Guy Katz has been awarded the Margot Friedländer Prize 2026 for his commitment to combating anti-Semitism. Other award winners include the Rövershagen European School in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the “Time Without Witnesses” project from the Association of German Catholic Youth in Paderborn. The awards, worth a total of 25,000 euros, were presented in the evening in Berlin.

The award commemorates the Holocaust survivor and honorary citizen of Berlin Margot Friedländer, who died in 2025. With the award, the Margot Friedländer Foundation honors people who work for tolerance, humanity, freedom and democracy and against anti-Semitism.

Katz is Jewish and the grandson of four Holocaust survivors. The professor of international management at the Munich University of Applied Sciences has initiated numerous alliances, campaigns and educational projects such as “Munich against Anti-Semitism”. After Hamas' Islamist terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, he organized more than 100 silent marches in Munich.

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The jury selected the prize winners from 310 submissions. The jury chairwoman is Elke Büdenbender, the wife of Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. She paid tribute to Katz for his persistence, courage and his special ability to take countless other people with him in his commitment.

The school prize goes to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania

The war graves group at the Rövershagen European School in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was awarded the foundation's school prize. She has been committed to Holocaust remembrance, anti-Semitism prevention and research into Jewish life in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania for over 25 years.

The “Time Without Witnesses” project from the Association of German Catholic Youth (BDKJ) Paderborn also received an award. It gives young people access to the history of National Socialism using virtual reality technology and makes historical places such as the Warsaw Ghetto come alive.

Margot Friedländer was an honorary citizen of Berlin

The foundation was launched by Margot Friedländer herself in the summer of 2023. The Berlin honorary citizen died on May 9, 2025 at the age of 103.

She came from a Jewish family in Berlin. She was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp by the National Socialists. After the liberation in 1945, she emigrated to the USA. Friedländer only moved back to Berlin when he was 88. She regularly visited schools and other institutions throughout Germany to report on her life as a contemporary witness.

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