Gerda Weissmann Klein (1924–2022)

As someone who is not a native speaker of English, Gerda Weissmann Klein writes masterfully. Her recollections of the time she spent as a young Jewish girl under Nazi rule are vividly, heartbreakingly eloquent. Klein spent the first part of the war with her parents in their home town of Beilitz, Poland, marginalized by the German invaders and forced to live with more and more hardship before finally being separated from them and sent to a series of work camps. After being forced to march show more from the final camp through the wintry wilderness of Germany to Czechoslovakia, she is finally liberated.
I guess I had a picture in my head of all the Jews being rounded up immediately at the start of the war, and spending the entire time in camps, which some were able to survive. I always wondered why, for the most part, they did not fight back. I realize after reading this book that this was a very inaccurate and uninformed idea. The marginalization happened so gradually and the propaganda was so overwhelming, plus people like Gerda had such a faith in humankind, thinking that people could not possibly be so cruel as to do the things they eventually ended up doing. I am ashamed that I never thought to learn more about this era prior to now.
Despite the horrid atrocity of the events in her life, Gerda writes with such sunniness and vitality that her story is not unbearably depressing. It is eminently readable and highly recommended.
The only thing I was bothered by while reading this was Klein's habit of telling what ended up happening to people as soon as we meet them, even though they continue to play into the story. For example, upon meeting Suse in the work camp, Gerda tells us Suse will die in the morning of the day they are liberated. Sues then continues to figure in to the story, all the while the reader knows she's doomed. This steals a little from the story, as the reader, already knowing Gerda will survive and Suse will not, has been spoiled by this knowledge. show less

The authors book received many honors since publication. It was an HBO movie "One Survivor Remembers." It was the winner of an Emmy Award and the Academy Award for documentary short subject,

This is a stark, yet beautifully rendered book about an experience of the Holocaust. I've read many books about this subject, and this one stands out as one to highly recommend to those who have read, or want to read more about this horrific subject.
Excellently written in a clear, beautiful way of show more focusing on the author's life before, during and after the experience that many Jews underwent and were fortunate to live through, this book will remain on my book shelf as one most poignantly, clearly written books.

Remarkably, she survived despite so many close-call experiences of being shuffled from one camp to another to another with each one focusing on how she managed to survive so many atrocities, and still shine a bright light on the good of humanity, and the ways in which people helped her in both small and large ways in her path to hang on and day by day, experience by experience to keep courage in order to live.

She had a loving, wonderful childhood composed of loving parents and a very close brother. Sadly, of the four, she was the only one to survive. The beauty of this story is the depiction of cruelty while she hung on to the beauty of instances where her life was spared by those who had roles in the fabric of Hitler's plan of extermination of all Jews, and yet risked their lives to save those they were told to kill. And, as one by one she received word of the end of life for each family member, while trying to maintain a will to live.

Her story begins in 1939 as the raid on her beautiful, small town of Bielitz, previously thought of as a safe place, was raided when all too soon the reality that Hitler did indeed plan to systematically kill all that he deeded unworthy to live, and clearly depicts what she lived through in order to survive. show less

A painful, well-written book. Everyone should read at least one holocaust memoir in their adulthood. This one was well-done. It is painful. It's slightly different than other I've read (such as _Night_), because it spends a little more time discussion life after the concentration camps and the author's re-entry into "normal" life.

A side note: this book made me start thinking about the time period leading up to the war. I think I've read enough about the years 1940-1945. I need to find show more something good that covers Hitler's rise. How did it begin? We all look back and say, "Never again," but how are we to accomplish "never again?" What attitudes, beliefs, and prejudices do we hold that could allow this kind of circumstance, a leader like Hitler, to come to power today? show less

All But My Life is about a fifteen year old girl, named Gerda Weissman, who lives in Poland. In 1939, the Nazis invade Poland, but it isn't a big deal, so the family keeps it from her father. They carry on as usual, but in October, Gerda's brother Aurthur is transported with other men to camps. She never saw him again. Eventually, Gerda and her parents are forced to move into a Ghetto. There, she meets a man named Abek, who loves her but she only sees him as a friend. A few months later, she show more is brought to a camp in Sosnowitz, where she is separated from her mother. Isle, her friend, and Gerda are sent to Merzdof, which was a horrible working camp. Gerda was punished by having to work flax detail day and night. Isle gets them transported to Landeshut, which was a much better camp. At Landeshut, Abek's family is willing to help her only if she agrees to marry Abek after the war. Gerda did not agree to that. There actually was a men's camp nearby, and Gerda got to see Abek. However, that was the last time she ever saw him. Then she was transported to Grunberg. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't nice either. In January of 1945, Germany is invaded and the girls are forced to go on a death march. For almost 5 months, the girls are marching on a cold, snowy miserable journey. During the march, Isle dies and is buried by a tree.There were time where the girls slept in barns. Most girls went to sleep and got up the next day. Some did not. A few girls tried to escape, but they were captured and killed. At the end of the march, the girls are left in an abandoned building. American soldiers arrive and take care of the few women left. Suse also died. Gerda and a few other women are taken to the hospital. At the hospital, Gerda talks to the soldier that she talked to the day that they were freed. She learns his name is Kurt Klein. Over time, she falls in love with him and marries him before he goes back to America.

I thought this book was wonderful. I love these types of books. They are always so interesting and detailed. A lot happened in this book and it was a lot to take in, but it was such a good read and I finished it pretty quick. It pains me to know that Gerda and millions of other people had to go through that, and not many survived. I love that you get all 3 parts in this book. You get a little of her life before the war, during the war, and some of her life after. I recommend to people who are interested in the Holocaust and want to get a 1st person point of view. show less