All But My Life

From the Publisher
Fifty years ago, in the winter of 1945, Gerda Weissmann, with more than four thousand other young women, began a thousand-mile march from a labor camp in western Germany to Czechoslovakia. A prisoner of the Nazis from the age of eighteen, Gerda was one of 120 who survived that march. On May 7, 1945, she and the rest of the group were liberated by the 5th American Infantry Division. The Nazis had taken all but her life. She was rescued by Lieutenant Kurt Klein, who saw to it that she received immediate medical care and visited her during her long convalescence. They fell in love, and a year later were married in Paris; they then traveled to Buffalo, New York, to begin a new life together. All But My Life is Gerda Klein's celebrated account of her three frightful years as a prisoner. It was the memories of her parents (who died at Auschwitz) and of her brother (who fled to unoccupied Poland and later perished) that made it possible for her to survive. Since coming to America, Ms. Klein has become prominent in Jewish affairs and has lectured throughout the country on behalf of the United Jewish Appeal, Bonds for Israel, and Hadassah, as well as to colleges and public schools. In the epilogue to this new edition, Gerda Klein answers the questions posed by her readers and her audiences across America.