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Margaret Thatcher’s Proudest Achievement
How is it, that Margaret Thatcher can be the first woman Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and almost a decade after her death, today was the first time I am hearing this story?
Margaret Thatcher was once asked what her greatest achievement in life was — the one thing of which she was most proud:
In 1938, a 17-year old Jewish girl, Edith Muhlbauer (pictured), wrote to Muriel Roberts, Margaret’s older sister, asking if their family might be able to help her escape Hitler’s Austria. By this time, the Nazis had already begun rounding up Vienna’s Jews after the Anschluss.
Alfred Roberts, Margaret’s Father, simply did not have the means to help Edith escape to England. Margaret, then 12, and Muriel, 17, set about raising money in Grantham, literally knocking on doors.
The money was raised, and another Jewish life was saved.
(Source: Likud UK, September 27, 2021)
I can help but believe that had Mrs. Thatcher been a liberal or a socialist, there would have been movies made about the little girl who saved a Jewish family from the Nazis, released to help with her first election campaign. Instead of just a few newspaper clippings from Israeli newspapers.
She was rightly proud. This is why the Lady was not for turning, she knew the hard work it takes to change the world – even if just one life at a time.
Published in General
Claire Berlinski wrote a really good biography of Thatcher and I learned how her faith directed her life – her dad was a minister and she was determined not to let radicals and progressives rule. I suspect there are any more stories like the one you posted.
This and some of the stories about Elizabeth II’s remarkable life make me weep when I consider the current crop of leaders the West is saddled with.
It’s tragic, isn’t it?
It truly is.
How interesting. So, saving a single Jewish girl is more important then helping to bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union? More important than liberating the Falklands?
Is this because the Jews are so much more important than everybody else?
I imagine it is because it was her part of the great civilizational struggle of the age that defined her country. That is World War II and the fight against the Nazis. Also I imagine it was the first time in her life that by an action and effort on her part she saved another persons life. That tends to make an impression on one.
My hunch is that the key here is choosing to do the right thing when the opportunity comes your way. Save a Jewish girl in the 1930s. Help crush the USSR in the 1980s.
The question before us is what are we doing with the opportunities this historical moment offers us?
Collapsing the Soviet Union had pros and cons. The Falklands was a political thing for her more than a patriotic one (think: Hong Kong).
Saving this young woman was unambiguously a good thing to do.
I guess it goes back to the Stalin quote, “A million deaths are a statistic, a single death is a tragedy”. At a time when so many adults watched the Nazis come to power, and did nothing, Young Margret raised the money to save someone. She recognized evil and acted.
Fantastic story, should be better known. I’m wondering: How did the Austrian girl know Muriel Robers?
And is a link available for the LIkud UK publication in which this appeared?
The deed that sets the heroine on the path has a special primacy. Had she not, would she still be the Iron Lady?
No I got this from facebook… And when I went around searching the story to verify its truth – facebook updated and dropped the story from my timeline.
According to this story in the Times of Israel, the girls where Pen Pals – but doesnt explain how contact began.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-margaret-thatchers-family-sheltered-an-austrian-jew-during-the-holocaust/
Margaret did more than FDR did.
She and her sister were able to help someone even though they had no political power, nor great wealth. How many great men and women did nothing? Margaret Thatcher had the right to rank her own accomplishments.
I felt this was a legitimate set of questions until the last one. That one I find distasteful.
Performing even small acts of virtue when you are young develops the character you have as an adult. And saving the life of someone else is a major act of virtue. If she hadn’t worked to develop her character when she was young she could never have become the sort of person who could bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union. By the way, I would suggest that you think very carefully about that last sentence you wrote. It does not show you in a favorable light. I would use the edit function to remove it if I were you.
This is a really odd comment. Perhaps Margaret remembers it a bit more directly, personally, than these larger world-impacting events.
Or perhaps she didn’t want to take credit for saving the world.