Gerda Weissmann Klein

Written by Clancy Sellers

Gerda Weissmann Klein was an extraordinary woman whose life continues to inspire good. As a humanitarian, acclaimed author, and Holocaust survivor, her legacy is unique and valuable. Her experiences serve as a reminder of the importance of resilience, and the importance of empathy.

Biography

Early Years

Gerda Weissmann Klein, born on May 8, 1924, in Bielsko, Poland, grew up in a loving middle-class home with her father, Julius, mother, Helene, and older brother, Arthur. She attended a public elementary school and later a Catholic high school, where a rabbi would come to teach the Jewish students. Gerda cared for ten cats, and her brother had two dogs.

However, that life was changed forever on September 1, 1939, when the Nazis invaded Poland. At just 15, Gerda’s life and the lives of Polish Jews were turned upside down. They were forced from their homes, required to wear armbands marked with a blue star, and stripped of their freedoms. On October 19, Gerda’s brother was taken by the Nazis, never to return. Soon after, Gerda and her parents were confined to living in their basement.

In April of 1942, Gerda and her family were forced to move to a ghetto where they lived together in one room, and were all forced to work in factories. Then, in June, Gerda's father was taken, and soon her mother was gone as well. Her parents would later die in concentration camps.

Imprisonment

Gerda was sent to a series of slave labor and concentration camps, Sosnowitz-Dulag, Bolkenhain, Merzdorf, Landeshut, Grünberg, and Helmbrechts. There, she worked long hours in factories under constant threat. Through her time at the camps, she had three friends beside her, Ilse, Lisl, and Susie. In the end though, Gerda was the only one to survive.

In the winter of 1945, Gerda and other Jewish prisoners were forced on a death march, enduring three months of exposure to the elements and walking 350 miles in the freezing cold. Then, after six years of suffering, Gerda reached Volary, Czechoslovakia, where she was liberated by an American military unit led by Kurt Klein on May 7, 1945. At 21 years old, she weighed 68 pounds, and her hair was completely white.

Liberation And Life After

After her liberation in May 1945, Gerda was critically ill, and she began to recover in a hospital. Kurt Klein visited her often, and during this time, he learned that nearly her entire family had died in the Holocaust. They became very close. Then, after being separated for a year while Kurt completed his military service, Gerda and Kurt married in Paris in June 1946.

The couple settled in Buffalo, New York, in 1947, where Kurt started Kiesling-Klein Printing. They raised three children, Leslie, Vivian, and James, and Gerda began sharing her experiences through writing and public speaking. She wrote Stories for Young Readers, a column that ran for nearly twenty years, and published her most famous work, All But My Life, in 1957, with Kurt as her editor.

Sources

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