 Today I attended the funeral service at the Waikumete Cemetery to honour the life of Marti Friedlander. It was a simple service held in a small wood-lined chapel shaped like a Star of David in the Jewish section of the vast graveyard.
The wind swirled outside as we listened to the rabbi reciting the Hebrew prayers and blessings, and to the eulogy by Leonard Bell, art historian, gallery curator, author and good friend of Marti Friedlander, such an intelligent mapping of her life path and career highlights, full of heart and warmth and made very poignant by quotations from a letter written by Marti’s 90 year old sister who lives in London. It was Anne who had been a comforting presence in Marti’s life, from the time they arrived in London, frightened little orphans from the war in Poland, and through the years they spent at the orphanage and right up until and beyond the moment that Marti met her future husband Gerrard Friedlander and emigrated to New Zealand. |