Margot (Margarita) Pindrik

Margot Pindrik was born in Munich on September 20, 1916. She was the daughter of the engineer Leo Pindrik, originally from Saint Petersburg, and his wife, Rosa. Margot grew up at Goethestrasse 3 with her brother Jakob, who was four years younger than her. Her father died in 1923. Margot Pindrik attended the Luisengymnasium high school from April 1928 to April 1932. She then took a course at a commercial vocational school, subsequently working as a clerk, bookkeeper and legal secretary.
The Nazi seizure of power marked a radical change in the lives of Margot Pindrik and her family. The Nazi regime deprived this Jewish family bit by bit of their livelihoods. In late 1938, Rosa Pindrik was forced to give up the delicatessen shop she had run since 1907. After the “Kristallnacht” pogroms of November 9-10, 1938, Rosa Pindrik let out a room to displaced Jews; but the Nazis deprived of even this business in 1939. In late September, 1939, Margot Pindrik, her mother and her brother were forced to leave their flat at Goethestrasse 3 and move to Goethestrasse 23, where many other Jewish families had been forcibly quartered. They tried desperately to emigrate to the USA, but all their efforts to obtain visas were in vain. On November 14, 1941, the family were sent to the “Judensiedlung” (“Jewish Quarter”) Milbertshofen, a primitive barrack camp at Knorrstrasse 148. On November 20, 1941, the Gestapo (secret state police) deported Margot Pindrik, her mother and her brother along with nearly 1,000 other Jews to Kaunas. There, the SS shot them five days later.(Text: Barbara Hutzelmann; editor: C. Fritsche; tranlation: C. Hales)