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Gerda Weissmann Klein

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Gerda Weissmann Klein
Weissmann Klein in 2011
Weissmann Klein in 2011
BornGerda Weissmann
(1924-05-08)May 8, 1924
Bielsko, Poland
DiedApril 3, 2022(2022-04-03) (aged 97)
Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.
OccupationWriter, human rights activist
Notable works
  • All But My Life
  • The Hours After: Letters of Love and Longing in War's Aftermath
  • One Survivor Remembers
Spouse
Kurt Klein
​
​
(m. 1946; died 2002)​

Gerda Weissmann Klein (May 8, 1924 – April 3, 2022) was a Polish American writer and human rights activist.

Her autobiographical account of the Holocaust, All but My Life (1957), was adapted for the 1995 short film, One Survivor Remembers, which received an Academy Award and an Emmy Award, and was selected for the National Film Registry. She married Kurt Klein (1920–2002) in 1946.

The Kleins became advocates of Holocaust education and human rights, dedicating most of their lives to promoting tolerance and community service. A naturalized U.S. citizen, Gerda Weissmann Klein also founded Citizenship Counts, a nonprofit organization that champions the value and responsibilities of American citizenship. She has served on the governing board of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which features her testimony in a permanent exhibit.

On February 15, 2011, Klein was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.

Early life

Gerda Weissmann, the second child of fur manufacturing executive Julius Weissmann and Helene (née Mueckenbrunn) Weissmann (housewife), was born on May 8, 1924, in Bielsko (now Bielsko-Biała), Poland. She attended Notre Dame Gymnasium in Bielsko until the Germans invaded Poland in 1939. Both of her parents and her older brother Arthur (b. 1919) died during the Holocaust. [1]

Life under the Nazis

On September 3, 1939, German troops invaded fifteen-year-old Gerda Weissmann's home in Bielsko, Poland. Shortly after the invasion began, the family received a telegram from Gerda's uncle saying the Germans were advancing quickly, and the family should leave Poland immediately. They stayed because Gerda's father had suffered a heart attack. His doctors advised that he not be moved or subjected to undue stress.[2]

In 1942, Gerda's father was sent to a death camp where he was murdered in April 1942. In June, 1942, Weissmann Klein was separated from her mother when the ghetto in which they were held was liquidated. As they boarded trucks, Weissmann Klein got out to keep from being separated from her mother. According to Weissmann Klein's account, the head of the local Jewish Council Judenrat, Moshe Merin, as he put her back in her truck, he stated, "You are too young to die."[3]

Liberation

In May 1945, Weissmann Klein was liberated by forces of the United States Army in Volary, Czechoslovakia;[4] these forces included Lieutenant Kurt Klein,[5] who was born in Germany and immigrated to the United States to escape Nazism as a teenager in 1937. Klein's parents were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

When Kurt Klein first encountered Gerda Weissmann, who was one day short of her 21st birthday, she was white-haired, weighed 68 pounds, dressed in rags, and had not bathed in three years. When she informed Klein that she was a Jew, he told her he was Jewish, as well. They were engaged in September 1945 and married in Paris.[6]

Life after the War

The documentary, One Survivor Remembers, (1995) based on Gerda Klein's autobiography, All But My Life,[7] produced and directed by Kary Antholis, and distributed by HBO Films, won the 1995 Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject).[8]After Antholis delivered his acceptance speech, Weissmann Klein stepped up to the podium and delivered her own set of remarks:

I have been in a place for six incredible years where winning meant a crust of bread and to live another day. Since the blessed day of my liberation I have asked the question, why am I here? I am no better. In my mind's eye I see those years and days and those who never lived to see the magic of a boring evening at home. On their behalf I wish to thank you for honoring their memory, and you cannot do it in any better way than when you return to your homes tonight to realize that each of you who know the joy of freedom are winners. [9]

Weissmann Klein has published several memoirs and children's stories, includingThe Windsor Caper (2013), a weekly serial in The Buffalo News during the 1980s, about two American girls who have a night-time adventure in Windsor Castle, England. Weissmann Klein describes it as her only work that is "not rooted in pain".

Klein died on April 3, 2022, at the age of 97.[10]

Awards and recognition

Presidential Medal of Freedom

On February 15, 2011, President Barack Obama presented Gerda Weissmann Klein and 14 other recipients with the 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom the highest civilian award in the United States.[11] At the ceremony in the East Room of the White House, President Obama announced, "This year's Medal of Freedom recipients reveal the best of who we are and who we aspire to be." He stated the following as Klein was presented with her Presidential Medal of Freedom:

By the time she was 21, Gerda Klein had spent six years living under Nazi rule — three of them in concentration camps. Her parents and brother had been taken away. Her best friend had died in her arms during a 350-mile death march. And she weighed only 68 pounds when she was found by American forces in an abandoned bicycle factory. But Gerda survived. She married the soldier who rescued her. And ever since — as an author, a historian, and a crusader for tolerance — she has taught the world that it is often in our most hopeless moments that we discover the extent of our strength and the depth of our love.

President Obama then read a statement from Klein: "I pray you never stand at any crossroads in your own lives, but if you do, if the darkness seems so total, if you think there is no way out, remember, never ever give up."[12]

Additional Recognition

Klein was selected to be the keynote speaker at the United Nations' first annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day in January 2006.[13] She has spoken to school children and traveled the world to spread her message of tolerance and hope, meeting with world leaders. In 1996, Klein was one of five women to receive the international Lion of Judah award in Jerusalem. She has also been featured on the cover of the McDougal-Littell high school textbook, The Americans, with such other notable figures as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., Ronald Reagan, and General Norman Schwarzkopf. She received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from Daemen College in 1975.

In 1997, President Bill Clinton appointed her to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Governing Council. In 2007, the museum bestowed Klein with its highest honor at The Arizona Biltmore before 1,000 guests.[14]

Legacy

She expressed her passion for the mission of Citizenship Counts (an organization founded by her and her oldest grandchild in 2008),:

America is a unique, diverse and wondrous country, comprised both of those who know its magnificence as their birthright, and others, like me, who are privileged to call our adopted country 'our own.' What we all share is a desire for our families to enjoy America's boundless opportunities while extending to all our fellow citizen's justice and the blessings and freedoms upon which the nation was founded.

To perpetuate the miracle that is America we must teach our children about its rich history as a nation of immigrants who chose this country and have given meaning to its ideals.

Citizenship Counts will engage today's students in civics education, combined with active participation in a naturalization ceremony, to help ensure that the citizens of tomorrow will continue to foster tolerance, understanding, service to one another, and a greater appreciation for the privilege and responsibility of citizenship.

Bibliography

  • 1957: All But My Life. New York: Hill & Wang, 1957, expanded edition 1995. ISBN 0809024608
  • 1974: The Blue Rose. Photographs by Norma Holt. New York: L. Hill, 1974. ISBN 0882080474
  • 1981: Promise of a New Spring: The Holocaust and Renewal. Illustrated by Vincent Tartaro. Chappaqua, N.Y.: Rossel Books, 1981. ISBN 0940646501
  • 1984: A Passion for Sharing: The Life of Edith Rosenwald Stern. Chappaqua, N.Y.: Rossel, 1984. ISBN 0940646153
  • 1986: Peregrinations: Adventures with the Green Parrot. Illustrations by Chabela. Buffalo, N.Y.: Josephine Goodyear Committee, 1986. ISBN 096166990X
  • 2000: The Hours After: Letters of Love and Longing in the War's Aftermath. Written with Kurt Klein. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. ISBN 0312242581
  • 2004: A Boring Evening at Home. Washington, D.C.: Leading Authorities Press, 2004. ISBN 0971007888
  • 2007: Wings of EPOH. Illustrated by Peter Reynolds. [S.l.]: FableVision Press, 2007. ISBN 1891405497
  • 2009: One Raspberry. Illustrated by Judy Hodge. Klein, 2009. ISBN 0615356230
  • 2013: The Windsor Caper. Illustrated by Tim Oliver. Martin Good, 2013. ISBN 9780956921352

Filmography

References

  1. ^ Personal Histories: Gerda Weissmann Klein and Kurt Klein Archived 2006-08-05 at the Wayback Machine, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 2013-06-15.
  2. ^ "Gerda Weissmannn". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. USHMM. Retrieved 27 December 2020.
  3. ^ Klein, Gerda Weissmann (1995). All But My Life (A new, expanded ed.). New York: Hill and Wang. ISBN 0809024608.
  4. ^ Gerda Weissmann Klein's testimony at "THE DEATH MARCH TO VOLARY" - an exhibition at Yad Vashem website
  5. ^ "Voices on Antisemitisim interview with Gerda Weissmann Klein". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 2006-12-07. Archived from the original on 2007-06-22.
  6. ^ Klein, Gerda Weissmann (2000). The hours after : letters of love and longing in the war's aftermath (1st ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0312242581.
  7. ^ Klein, Gerda Weissmann (1995). All But My Life (A new, expanded ed.). New York: Hill and Wang. ISBN 0809015803.
  8. ^ Klein, Gerda Weissmann. "One Survivor Remembers". IMDB. Retrieved 27 December 2020.
  9. ^ "Academy Awards Acceptance Speeches - Search Results | Margaret Herrick Library | Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences". aaspeechesdb.oscars.org. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  10. ^ Tapp, Tom (April 4, 2022). "Gerda Weissmann Klein Dies: Holocaust Survivor, Presidential Medal Of Freedom Recipient And Subject Of Oscar-Winning Film 'One Survivor Remembers,' Was 97". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  11. ^ "Gerda Klein: An Outstanding American by Choice". Department of Homeland security. DHS.
  12. ^ White House Press Office, Remarks by the President Honoring the Recipients of the 2010 Medal of Freedom, February 15, 2011. Retrieved 2013-06-15.
  13. ^ "Remembrance and Beyond". The Holocaust and United Nations Outreach Program. United Nations.
  14. ^ "One Survivor Remembers". Shushterman Center for Jewish Studies. The University of Texas at Austin.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gerda_Weissmann_Klein&oldid=1081358262"