Mirjam Finkelstein (née Mirjam Wiener) (10 June 1933 – 28 January 2017) was a

Holocaust survivor Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally accep ...

and educator. Born in

Berlin, Germany Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constituent ...

to Dr

Alfred Wiener Alfred Wiener (16 March 1885, Potsdam – 4 February 1964, London) was a German Jew who dedicated much of his life to documenting antisemitism and racism in Germany and Europe, and uncovering crimes of Germany's Nazi government. He is best rememb ...

, a Jewish activist and founder of the

Wiener Library The Wiener Holocaust Library () is the world's oldest institution devoted to the study of the Holocaust, its causes and legacies. Founded in 1933 as an information bureau that informed Jewish communities and governments worldwide about the pe ...

, her family moved to

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

in 1933. There she grew up in the same community as

Anne Frank Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – )Research by The Anne Frank House in 2015 revealed that Frank may have died in February 1945 rather than in March, as Dutch authorities had long assumed"New research sheds new light on Anne Fra ...

and they knew each other as children. In June 1943, Finkelstein was taken by the Nazis along with her mother and sisters to

Westerbork transit camp Camp Westerbork ( nl, Kamp Westerbork, german: Durchgangslager Westerbork, Drents: ''Börker Kamp; Kamp Westerbörk'' ), also known as Westerbork transit camp, was a Nazi transit camp in the province of Drenthe in the Northeastern Netherlands, d ...

and then to

Bergen-Belsen concentration camp Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concent ...

. She was one of the eye witnesses to the presence in Bergen-Belsen of Anne Frank and her sister,

Margot Margot (; ) is a feminine French given name, a variant of Marguerite. It is also occasionally a surname. Persons named Margot include the following: People with the given name Margot * Margot Asquith, countess of Oxford and Asquith * Marguerite ...

. When she saw them arrive in the camp her sister Ruth took out a forbidden pocket diary and wrote a note about their arrival, which became important evidence after the war for Anne Frank's whereabouts. Mirjam's father, who had managed to reach

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

in 1939, was able to obtain fake

Paraguayan Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

passports for his family, but the visas arrived after the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940. The other members of the family were included as part of a prisoner exchange at the Swiss border in January 1945. German soldiers still boarded the train to take them to another camp. With her two sisters, Ruth and Eva, Mirjam Wiener successfully pressed them to allow their safe passage on the train from Bergen-Belsen because their mother was too ill to move. Other ill prisoners were removed instead. Margarethe, her mother, died from starvation after her arrival in Switzerland. Finkelstein settled in London, England, spending the rest of her life on behalf of the

Anne Frank Foundation The Anne Frank Foundation ( nl, Anne Frank Stichting) is a foundation in the Netherlands originally established to maintain the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. This foundation also advocates the fight against antisemitism and racism and publishes t ...

and the

Holocaust Educational Trust The Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) is a British charity, based in London, whose aim is to "educate young people of every background about the Holocaust and the important lessons to be learned for today." One of the Trust's main achievements ...

, visiting schools to talk about her experiences during the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

. In 2016, she was photographed for the book ''Survivor''. She married Ludwik Finkelstein. The couple had three children:

Daniel Finkelstein Daniel William Finkelstein, Baron Finkelstein, (born 30 August 1962) is a British journalist and politician. He is a former executive editor of ''The Times'' and remains a weekly political columnist. He is a former chairman of Policy Exchange ...

Anthony Finkelstein Sir Anthony Charles Wiener Finkelstein (born 28 July 1959 ) is a British engineer and computer scientist. He is the President of City, University of London. He was Chief Scientific Adviser for National Security to HM Government until 2021. E ...

, and

Tamara Finkelstein Tamara Margaret Finkelstein (born 24 May 1967) is a British civil servant who is currently the permanent secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Early life and education Tamara Margaret Finkelstein was born on 2 ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Finkelstein, Mirjam 1933 births 2017 deaths Bergen-Belsen concentration camp survivors German emigrants to the United Kingdom Westerbork transit camp survivors