All But My Life by Gerda Weissmann Klein Published by Macmillan on March 30, 1995
Genres: Biography & Autobiography / Cultural & Regional, Biography & Autobiography / Historical, Biography & Autobiography / Jewish, History / Jewish, History / Modern / 20th Century / Holocaust, History / Wars & Conflicts / World War II / General, Juvenile Fiction / General
Pages: 261
Format: Audiobook, eBook
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All But My Life is the unforgettable story of Gerda Weissmann Klein's six-year ordeal as a victim of Nazi cruelty. From her comfortable home in Bielitz (present-day Bielsko) in Poland to her miraculous survival and her liberation by American troops--including the man who was to become her husband--in Volary, Czechoslovakia, in 1945, Gerda takes the reader on a terrifying journey.
Gerda's serene and idyllic childhood is shattered when Nazis march into Poland on September 3, 1939. Although the Weissmanns were permitted to live for a while in the basement of their home, they were eventually separated and sent to German labor camps. Over the next few years Gerda experienced the slow, inexorable stripping away of "all but her life." By the end of the war she had lost her parents, brother, home, possessions, and community; even the dear friends she made in the labor camps, with whom she had shared so many hardships, were dead.
Despite her horrifying experiences, Klein conveys great strength of spirit and faith in humanity. In the darkness of the camps, Gerda and her young friends manage to create a community of friendship and love. Although stripped of the essence of life, they were able to survive the barbarity of their captors. Gerda's beautifully written story gives an invaluable message to everyone. It introduces them to last century's terrible history of devastation and prejudice, yet offers them hope that the effects of hatred can be overcome.
I have no idea how I came across this book. I know I did, I looked it up, found it intriguing and then waiting almost 2 months (yes like 8ish weeks!) for it to be available on Libby. Over those two months I completely forgot where/why/how I came across it to decide to listen. I’ve looked in all the obvious places to no avail. But ultimately, it doesn’t matter how I came across it, it matters that I did. I did something a little different with this one as I alternated between the audio book and the eBook. What I did discover is that while I listen at 1.25 speed I actually physically read faster. Go figure.
This is my third autobiography, or memoir, this year and they never are easy to review. How do you attach a rating to someone else’s experience that they choose to share? I enjoy reading memoirs especially those with a historical aspect. I really dislike reviewing them. I can talk about the writing style, the way the words appear in the story. But at the end of the day I’m just passing judgement on someone else’s experience and that sometimes feels wrong. I mean how do I judge someone’s experience of being Jewish in the heart of WW2 in the camps and the death march. How do I judge the choices they made, or didn’t make. No matter if I love or hate it I’m still passing judgement. A long winded way to say that while I really took a lot away from reading Gerda Weissmann Klein’s story I did struggle with it. It was good but I felt some detachment.
Before adding this book to my hold list I did review other reviews. I like to do that sometimes, especially with older books. Is it worth my time? Is it something that I will resonate with? Some of the things mentioned in those previous reviews I do agree with. Some I don’t as I understand her choices differently. If I am going to judge her history, her experience, honestly I’m going to rip my own bandaid as I know that this only really matters to me. While I may not agree with all the choices she made throughout her young life I do understand them. She was young when it all started still full of hope and optimism. Even throughout everything she, in many ways, was naive which I truly feel influenced the choices she made. None of that really bothered me, I felt sad for her perhaps because I have hindsight and she did not have foresight. The one thing I wished for, maybe against my own better judgement, is more depth. What I really wanted I don’t know that she was capable of giving as that would have been new wounds again and again. I felt like I was reading a list of things that happened but I didn’t get the emotional pull that really put me into her ski boots. If I am going to judge, the real issue is with me wanting to make her relive all that happened with the emotional toll that it had to have taken on her. I wanted to walk with her not just hear about her walk.
About Gerda Weissmann Klein
Gerda Weissmann Klein, a Polish-born Holocaust survivor, endured the horrors of the Nazi regime, including six years of forced labor and internment, culminating in a brutal 350-mile death march across Germany in the final months of the war. Her story, which is immortalized in her memoir All But My Life (1957) and the Academy Award-winning short documentary One Survivor Remembers (1995), stands the test of time as a profound testimony of survival, remembrance, and the importance of bearing witness.
Gerda Weissmann was born on May 8, 1924, in Bielsko, Poland, into a loving Jewish family. Her childhood was marked by the normalcy and happiness of prewar Europe. She was particularly close to her older brother, Arthur, and enjoyed school, nature, skiing and vacationing. Her life changed forever when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. As the war progressed, Gerda and her family were subjected to increasingly brutal restrictions and imprisonment in the basement of their own home. Gerda’s brother Arthur was allegedly deported to work in the eastern regions of Poland, but he was never heard from again.
In 1942, Gerda and her family were forced to move into the ghetto in Bielsko before she was separated from her parents when they were deported and murdered at Auschwitz. Gerda was deported to Sosnowiec transit camp near Auschwitz, and later to a series of forced labor camps. Through it all, she remembered the words of her father, urging her to never give up hope and lose her will to live. That hope sustained her through the next three years of starvation, injuries, illness, and humiliation. She endured imprisonment and forced labor in a series of textile mills and camps in the Gross-Rosen concentration camp system. Between the summer of 1942 and early January 1945, Gerda was imprisoned in Bolkenhain (Poland), Merzdorf (Poland), Landshut (Germany), Grünberg (Zielona Góra, Poland).
In the winter of 1945, as the Allied forces closed in, Gerda and thousands of other women in Grünberg were forced on a death march of more than 350 miles in winter conditions by the retreating Nazis. For three months, in bitter cold and with barely any food or shelter, the women marched across the mountainous area of southern Germany. Of the 2,000 women who began the march, only 120 survived.
On May 7, 1945, Gerda was liberated by American troops in Volary, Czechoslovakia. Among them was Lt. Kurt Klein, a Jewish-American intelligence officer who had fled Germany before the war. He was the first to show her kindness after years of dehumanization. Their meeting would change both their lives when they fell in love in the summer of 1945 as Gerda recovered. They married in 1946 and built a new life together in the United States.
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