Margit Feldman

Margit Buchhalter Feldman (June 12, 1929 – April 14, 2020) was a Hungarian-American public speaker, educator, activist, and Holocaust survivor. Feldman and her family were placed in a concentration camp in 1944, where her parents were killed immediately. The 15-year-old survived by saying she was older, old enough to be sent to a work camp. She was freed from Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on April 15, 1945. After moving to the United States, she raised a family and became a public speaker, sharing her experience with students until her death.

Early life

Margit Buchhalter was born June 12, 1929, in Budapest, Hungary. Her parents were Joseph and Theresa Buchhalter. The family lived in Tolcsva, Hungary. Her family was moved into a Nazi ghetto in another town.

Buchhalter was transported to a women's camp in Gruenberg, where she met Gerda Weissmann Klein. Buchhalter was in the death march from Gruenberg to Bergen-Belsen.

Feldman co-founded the Raritan Valley Community College Institute for Holocaust & Genocide Studies in 1981. She also co-founded the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education with then New Jersey state assemblyman Jim McGreevey in 1991. In 1994, she supported a bill mandating Holocaust and genocide curriculum in New Jersey schools. In 2016, Peppy Margolis directed a documentary about Feldman, entitled Not A23029. Michael Berenbaum narrated the short film.

Death Feldman lived in Somerset, New Jersey, until her death on April 14, 2020, from COVID-19-related complications.

Works with Bernard Weinstein. Margit: A teenager's journey through the Holocaust and beyond. Scottsdale: Princeton Editorial Associates (2003).