NewsUpper SchoolFaculty/StaffAcademics
Holocaust survivor to speak to Darlington community
Sep 29, 2004 8:00 AM
By Tannika King - Faculty
Author, historian and speaker Gerda Weissmann Klein will visit Darlington Friday, Oct. 1, as part of Fall Parents Weekend. Klein’s classic autobiography “All But My Life” was selected as Darlington’s school-wide book project for 2004-05.
In 1939, then 15-year-old Klein’s life changed forever as German troops invaded her home in Beilsko, Poland. Cruelly separated from her parents and sent to a slave-labor camp, Klein would never see her family again. Never losing hope, she spent the next three years in a succession of slave-labor camps, until she was forced to walk in a 350-mile death march in which 2,000 women were subjected to exposure, starvation and arbitrary execution. Despite such atrocities, Klein never lost the will to survive.
Klein’s classic autobiography, in print for 40 years in 55 editions, depicts her view of the dark years of the Holocaust, a progression that ultimately led to her liberation from a death march by her future husband, Kurt Klein, an American intelligence officer. Her book is the first full-length first person account of a Holocaust survivor printed in the United States.
Many people recognize Klein from the 1995 HBO documentary, “One Survivor Remembers,” in which the author recounts some of her wartime experiences. The documentary won a TV Emmy Award, two Cable Ace Awards and an Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her story is also portrayed in the film “Testimony,” a permanent exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. In 1997, Klein was appointed to the council of the museum by President Bill Clinton.
Klein and her husband are also the authors of “The Hours After: Letters of Love and Longing in War’s Aftermath,” based on their actual correspondence following the war. Most recently, Klein released “A Boring Evening at Home,” a collection of stories that reinforce the messages of friends, family, love and perseverance. In 1988, the Kleins also founded the Gerda and Kurt Klein Foundation to promote tolerance, lessen prejudice and encourage community service focused on local hunger relief.
Klein has earned seven Doctorates of Humane Letters, along with countless other awards. She was one of five women to receive the prestigious international Lion of Judah award in Jerusalem. More recently, she was featured on the cover of a McDougall-Little educational textbook, “The Americans,” alongside such other notable figures as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., Ronald Reagan and Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf.
Klein will give her lecture at 9 a.m. in the Van Es Arena of Darlington's A.J. Huffman '67 Memorial Athletic Center.
In 1939, then 15-year-old Klein’s life changed forever as German troops invaded her home in Beilsko, Poland. Cruelly separated from her parents and sent to a slave-labor camp, Klein would never see her family again. Never losing hope, she spent the next three years in a succession of slave-labor camps, until she was forced to walk in a 350-mile death march in which 2,000 women were subjected to exposure, starvation and arbitrary execution. Despite such atrocities, Klein never lost the will to survive.
Klein’s classic autobiography, in print for 40 years in 55 editions, depicts her view of the dark years of the Holocaust, a progression that ultimately led to her liberation from a death march by her future husband, Kurt Klein, an American intelligence officer. Her book is the first full-length first person account of a Holocaust survivor printed in the United States.
Many people recognize Klein from the 1995 HBO documentary, “One Survivor Remembers,” in which the author recounts some of her wartime experiences. The documentary won a TV Emmy Award, two Cable Ace Awards and an Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her story is also portrayed in the film “Testimony,” a permanent exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. In 1997, Klein was appointed to the council of the museum by President Bill Clinton.
Klein and her husband are also the authors of “The Hours After: Letters of Love and Longing in War’s Aftermath,” based on their actual correspondence following the war. Most recently, Klein released “A Boring Evening at Home,” a collection of stories that reinforce the messages of friends, family, love and perseverance. In 1988, the Kleins also founded the Gerda and Kurt Klein Foundation to promote tolerance, lessen prejudice and encourage community service focused on local hunger relief.
Klein has earned seven Doctorates of Humane Letters, along with countless other awards. She was one of five women to receive the prestigious international Lion of Judah award in Jerusalem. More recently, she was featured on the cover of a McDougall-Little educational textbook, “The Americans,” alongside such other notable figures as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., Ronald Reagan and Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf.
Klein will give her lecture at 9 a.m. in the Van Es Arena of Darlington's A.J. Huffman '67 Memorial Athletic Center.
