“All But My Life”: a Tale of the Shoah, Survival and Triumph
Gerda Klein receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama in 2011
Gerda Klein, a Holocaust survivor, received The Kay Family Award from the Anti-Defamation League on December 6, 2020 for “her extraordinary display of acts of heroism in confronting intolerance and injustice, extremism and terrorism”.
Gerda as a young girl
When Alice Jo and I started dating in 1954, I learned that her mother (my future mother-in-law) had a close friend in Buffalo, where we lived, who had survived the Holocaust. Her name was Gerda Weissmann Klein (b. 1924) who lived in Bielitz (now Bielsko), Poland as a child. We, also, became life-long friends of this extraordinary woman. When Gerda was taken from her home in 1942 by the Nazis at age 18 years, her father insisted she take her ski boots. She knew not why, but they would save her life. Remarkably, Gerda at age 21, when rescued by the American forces that liberated her from a makeshift detention camp in Czechoslovakia, met and later married a U.S. soldier among the liberators, army Lieutenant Kurt Klein. Her family, mother, father and brother, had been lost to Nazi barbarism. Soon after the Germans occupied Poland in 1939, the Weissmanns were forced to live in the basement of their home. Later, Gerda’s brother was ostensibly conscripted by the German Army, but was never heard from again. By January 1942 at the Wannsee Conference, Hitler and his henchman Reinhard Heydrich and fellow Nazis crafted “The Final Solution to the Jewish Question”, a plan to annihilate 11 million Jews. They achieved over half of their goal. Gerda’s father was sent to a concentration camp (killing center) and killed in 1942. Gerda and her mother were moved into a Jewish Ghetto and they were taken from there, her mother to a concentration camp (killing center) and murdered, and she to a different forced-labor camp, the first of four in which she was a prisoner. The first three were sub-camps of Gross-Rosen. In early 1945, as the allied armies were advancing toward Germany, Gerda and approximately 4000 other girls were forced to march 350 miles farther east into occupied Czechoslovakia ahead of allied forces. By the time they reached their destination, only 120 of the young women were alive. The forced march was through bitter cold, snow and ice and many died of exposure and other laggards were shot; many had no intact shoes and were essentially in bare feet. Gerda had the ski boots her father insisted she take when the Germans took her. In May 1945, Gerda was liberated by advancing American army units, among which was Lieutenant Klein. Gerda weighed 68 pounds, her hair had turned white, she was dressed in tattered clothes and she had not bathed in several years. They were engaged in September 1945 and married in 1946 in Paris. Lieutenant Klein could see past the rags and emaciation into the soul of a future wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother and a future community leader of extraordinary grace and intellect: a captivating speaker and writer.
Gerda holding a picture of her husband, Kurt Klein
Gerda settled in Kenmore, New York, a suburb of Buffalo, Kurt’s home, and in her later years moved to Scottsdale Arizona, the home of one of her daughters, where she continues her work at age 96. She devoted her life to the cause of justice and Jewish survival. She has been dedicated to Holocaust education, emphasizing the importance of tolerance and community service. She authored several books and monographs, the most heralded of which is her autobiographical story All But My Life, in its 77th edition. It is a story of survival, hope, victory over the forces of evil and, finally, triumph. The book was made into a movie and into a HBO documentary “One Survivor Remembers”. The works received an Academy Award and an Emmy Award. Gerda has been a champion of so many causes. Her honors speak to her impact. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barak Obama in February 2011. She was a founding member of the governing board of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, at which she is featured in a permanent exhibit. She founded a national not-for-profit organization, Citizenship Counts, which mission is "to inspire pride in America" that is done through interactive citizenship-themed curricula. Citizenship Counts was established as Gerda’s way of giving back to her adopted country. She has spoken to children in 50 states about tolerance and citizenship. She gave the keynote address at the first annual United Nations Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2006. Her writings, honors, and contribution are too numerous to capture in this short article. Her message “I pray you never stand at any crossroads in your own lives, but if you do, if the darkness is total, if you think there is no way out, remember never give up” is a tribute to her courage, survival and accomplishments. She lost her nuclear family but now has 39 family members and 29 direct descendants from children to great-grandchildren, the ultimate victory over the Nazi exterminators. (Figure) Gerda Klein’s story is a tribute to all Holocaust survivors and is a testimony to triumph on behalf of those who were lost.
The family of Gerda Klein (Spring 2020). Gerda at the very bottom of the stairs.
Written December 2020