Remembering Gerda Weissmann Klein

Above: Gerda Weissmann Klein with her granddaughter Alysa Cooper

USC Shoah Foundation mourns the loss of Holocaust survivor and Institute friend Gerda Weissmann Klein, who passed away on April 3, 2022. She was 97.

Gerda Klein (born Gerda Weissmann), daughter of Julius and Helene, was born in Bielsko, Poland, on May 8, 1924. The family kept a kosher home and observed all the Jewish holidays. Both of Gerda’s grandmothers lived with her family for a time, and almost every weekend, the extended family of aunts, uncles, and cousins spent time at the Weissmann house. Gerda attended public elementary school and Catholic high school. A rabbi would come to the Catholic school to teach the Jewish students during their religious instruction classes.

On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland and World War II began. Then 15, Gerda recalls seeing planes with swastikas flying over her hometown. Bielsko was occupied by German troops two days later. Life quickly began to change for Polish Jews like the Weissmann family; identification and ration cards were issued, and Jews had to wear armbands with a blue star.

Gerda’s older brother, Arthur, was taken away on October 19 never to be seen again. The family was thrown out of their home and forced to live in their basement. To help support the family, Gerda and her mother knitted and sold sweaters.

In April 1942, the family received notice that they had to move into the Bielsko Biala ghetto. Gerda and her parents lived in one room. Gerda and her mother sewed uniforms at a factory in Wadowice, and her father worked to fortify a river in Sucha.

Gerda’s father was taken away in June 1942, and shortly thereafter, Gerda was separated from her mother. Gerda never saw her family again. In part, Gerda credits her survival to the ski boots her father told her to wear.

Between June 1942 and May 1945, Gerda was sent to Sosnowitz-Dulag, a transit camp in Poland; Bolkenhain, a labor and concentration camp in Germany; Merzdorf, a labor and concentration camp in Germany; Landeshut, a labor and concentration camp in Germany; Grünberg in Schlesien, a labor and concentration camp in Germany; and Helmbrechts, a labor and concentration camp in Germany. Throughout her time in labor and concentration camps, Gerda worked in factories and was forced to do slave labor.

Gerda Klein on forced labor

Gerda Klein reflects on daily life while imprisoned in the Merzdorf concentration camp a subsidiary camp of Gross Rosen. She describes her forced labor making textiles and also working alongside German citizens.

In January 1945, Gerda was sent on a death march that continued until May 1945, when she and a group of prisoners were liberated in Volary, Czechoslovakia, by American troops. One of the soldiers she met that day was Kurt Klein, a German-Jewish refugee himself. His parents sent him to the United States when he was 17, before they were deported to Auschwitz and killed. Kurt and Gerda married in 1946, and they moved to Buffalo, New York.

Gerda Klein on her liberation

Gerda describes being liberated by the United States Army and encountering her future husband, U.S. Army Lt. Kurt Klein, in Volary, Czechoslovakia, in May 1945. Gerda Klein was born Gerda Weissmann on May 8, 1924, in Bielsko, Poland. Gerda and her brother, Arthur, grew up relatively unaware of the spread of Nazism, until Poland was invaded in 1939; soon after, Arthur was taken away on a transport. In April 1942, Gerda and her parents were ordered into the Bielsko ghetto. Two months later, Gerda, her mother, and father were separated, and Gerda was sent to the Sosnowitz transit camp in Poland. She never saw her family again. After that, Gerda was moved from camp to camp. In January 1945, Gerda was sent on a death march from the Grünberg labor camp to the Helmbrechts labor camp in Germany and from there continued into Czechoslovakia. Gravely ill during the forced march, Gerda was liberated by the American Army, including her future husband, Lt. Kurt Klein, in Volary, Czechoslovakia. In August 1946, Gerda and Kurt were married in Paris before rreturning to Kurt's home in Buffalo, New York. There, Gerda would eventually work as a columnist for the Buffalo Evening-News. At the time of her interview in 1995, Gerda was living with her husband in Scottsdale, Arizona, and had three children and eight grandchildren.

The couple had three children, eight grandchildren, and 18 great-grandchildren.

Gerda wrote a weekly column for the Buffalo Evening News.

Her memoir about her Holocaust experience and survival, All But My Life, was first published in 1957 and became the subject of a 1995 Oscar-winning short documentary, “One Survivor Remembers.” The film’s director, Kary Antholis brought Gerda to the stage when he accepted his award. After his acceptance speech, Gerda took the opportunity to say a few words about the true meaning of winning.

President Bill Clinton appointed Gerda to the governing council of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1997.

Her husband Kurt Klein passed away in 2002. In the below clip, he recalls meeting his wife for the first time.

Kurt Klein

Kurt describes liberating survivors of a death march in May 1945, in Volary, Czechoslovakia, including his first encounter with his future wife, Gerda. Kurt Klein was born July 2, 1920, in Walldorf, Germany. As the Nazi persecution of German Jews intensified, Kurt’s parents decided to send him and his siblings to live with distant relatives in Buffalo, New York, where he worked in various jobs, including the printing business, trying to raise enough money to bring his parents to the United States. Kurt was drafted into the United States Army in 1943. After participating in the Normandy campaign in 1944, Kurt served as a prisoner-of-war interrogator. While in Czechoslovakia, Kurt met his future wife, survivor Gerda Weissmann. At the end of his service toward the end of 1945, Kurt proposed to Gerda before returning to the printing business in Buffalo. A year later in August 1946, Kurt and Gerda married in Paris and then settled in Buffalo. During the war, Kurt's parents were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they perished. At the time of Kurt’s interview in 1995, he and Gerda had three children and eight grandchildren, and were living in Scottsdale, Arizona. Kurt’s unique point of view is that of both a survivor and a liberator.

Along with her granddaughter Alysa Cooper, Gerda founded the non-partisan Citizenship Counts in 2008 to educate middle and high school students on citizenship and encourage them to appreciate their rights and responsibilities as Americans.

In 2011, President Barack Obama awarded Gerda the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor. On that day, she offered advice to anyone struggling, “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.”

Gerda Klein’s interview for USC Shoah Foundation was conducted on December 7, 1995, in Scottsdale, Arizona, where the couple moved after Kurt’s retirement.

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