In 1996, 71-year-old Gerda Weissmann Klein found herself onstage at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, looking at a star-studded audience that included Nicolas Cage, Susan Sarandon, Mira Sorvino and Mel Gibson.
The occasion was the 68th Academy Awards ceremony, and Weissman Kline had been brought to the stage by director Kary Antholis. His 40-minute film, “One Survivor Remembers,” had just won the Oscar for Best Documentary (short subject). The HBO film, which a year earlier won the Emmy for Outstanding Informational Special, was adapted from Weissmann Klein’s autobiography, “All But My Life,” which chronicled the six years she endured as a young Jewish woman living under Nazi rule during World War II.
In accepting his Oscar, Antholis turned the mic over to his guest who delivered a short, powerful speech:
“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.”
Gerda Weissmann Klein, who as a teenager survived the Holocaust and later became an author, activist, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, died Sunday in Phoenix. She was 97.
Survivors include three children — including longtime Las Vegas resident Leslie Simon — as well as eight grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren.
Born in Bielsko, Poland, on May 8, 1924, Weissmann Klein was the child of a fur manufacturing executive. She began her education in Polish public schools, but later entered a Catholic girls school, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
As Nazi Germany invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, Weissmann Klein and her family remained in Bielsko as the city underwent intense shelling (her father had recently suffered a heart attack and could not flee). In 1942, her father was sent to a death camp where he was murdered in April. In June of that same year, she was separated from her mother and moved to a forced-labor camp where she was nearly overworked to death.
By the time she was 21, Weissmann Klein had spent six years living under Nazi rule, three of them in concentration camps. As Allied forces advanced into German territory in 1945, Weissmann Klein was one of 118 survivors among 2,000 women who were forced to make a grueling 350-mile “death march” from a slave camp at Grunberg, Poland, to Volary, Czechoslovakia.
Weissmann Klein was liberated on May 7, 1945, by American troops. At the time, she weighed just 68 pounds and was one day shy of her 21st birthday. One of those troops, 25-year-old Army Lt. Kurt Klein (1920-2002), later became her husband. The two married in Paris in 1946 before moving to the United States. Among her parents and older brother, she was the only member of her family to survive the Holocaust.
After the war, the two settled in Buffalo, N.Y., where Kurt was a printer and Gerda was a longtime children’s issues columnist for the Buffalo News. After retirement, the couple moved to Scottsdale, Ariz., and established the Gerda and Kurt Klein Foundation to perpetuate the lessons learned from the Holocaust.
In 1997, Weissmann Klein was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Governing Council. She went on to give the keynote speech at the United Nations’ first annual international Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2006.
In 2008, Weissmann Klein and her eldest granddaughter, Alysa Cooper, founded Citizenship Counts, a nonprofit to educate students on the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
President Barack Obama in 2011 awarded Weissmann Klein the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, stating “she has taught the world that it is often our most hopeless moments that we discover the extent of our strength and the depth of our love.”
“One Survivor Remembers” was added to the National Film Registry in 2012, and was made available to educators through the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance Program.
“Gerda Weissman Klein was a survivor of the Holocaust; but she was so much more,” said Stefanie Tuzman, President and CEO of Jewish Nevada. “She was a remarkable woman; a true Eishet Hayil, a woman of valor.
“She was a Jewish heroine and leader; a teacher of and for humanity, who shared her story and lessons with so many; a soul and heart filled with care and compassion. The world will feel this profound loss.”
Her family will hold a private service, but plans to hold a public memorial over Zoom in the coming weeks, according to the Arizona Republic.