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Gerda Weissmann Klein and Kurt Klein: "He held the door open for me and let me precede him and in that gesture restored me to humanity." | |||
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Gerda Weissmann Born 1924 Bielsko, Poland 
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Gerda was born to a Jewish middle-class family in Bielsko, Poland, a town noted for its textile industry. She began her education in Polish public school, but later entered a Catholic girls school. A rabbi was permitted to come into the school and instruct the Jewish students in religious studies.
1933-39: On Friday, September 1, 1939, German fighter planes appeared overhead, causing many people to flee the city. My family remained and lived through the intense shelling that followed on Sunday evening. In the morning we heard a tremendous roar. Two German soldiers raced up the street on a motorcycle. We heard people shouting "Heil Hitler" and a black, white and red swastika flag suddenly fluttered from a window across the street. 1940-45: After being moved to Bielsko's ghetto, I was deported in 1942 to work in a textile mill in Bolkenhain, Silesia. Despite the hunger and backbreaking labor, there was caring among the inmates. A German supervisor, Mrs. Kugler, even saved my life. I'd fallen ill and gone to the camp hospital. Mrs. Kugler knew that an SS man was inspecting and that the sick would be gassed. She dragged me back to the factory, started my loom and set me in front of it. I was delirious from fever, but I passed the inspection. Gerda was later sent to slave-labor camps in Marzdorf, Landshut and Gruenberg. She was liberated by the American Army in May 1945, and emigrated to the United States in 1946. |
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Gerda Weissmann Klein Born 1924 Bielsko, Poland 
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They needed German-speaking people to be trained, so he bought all of us for a place called Bolkenhain which was a new weaving camp in Oberschlesien [Upper Silesia]. And in fact this is where we went. In all fairness I must say that uh that camp was probably better than than most of certainly what followed because it was new. You see, we were only fifty girls there. And the person who became our lagerfuehrerin [camp leader], at first sight she looked like a bulldog and then I thought she's going to tear us limb from limb, and she was a very kind person. She was probably chosen for her looks but we all who were in captivity under her owe her a debt of gratitude. And I think by her very decency she pinned a lie to the lips of all who said they had no choice. I won't say she particularly loved us. She saved my life once for which I'll be eternally grateful. There was as far as I know, and I do know, that as long as we were there, and later in a place called Landeshut where she also was, nobody was sent to Auschwitz from our camp, from those two camps. And uh she showed that people could help individually and she did. I only met, during my entire years under the Nazis for six years, I only met two who were really kind and I think that they should be singled out for that. Frau..her name was Frau Kuegler. | ||
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Gerda Weissmann Klein Born 1924 Bielsko, Poland 
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All of a sudden I saw (pause) a strange car coming down the hill, no longer green, not bearing the swastika, but a white star. It was sort of a mud-splattered vehicle but I've never seen a star brighter in my life. And two men sort of jumped out, came running toward us and one came toward where I stood. He was wearing battle gear. I have to think...you know. His helmet was this mesh over that and he was wearing dark glasses and he spoke to me in German. And he said, "Does anybody here speak German or English?" and I said, "I speak German." And I felt that I had to tell him we are Jewish and I didn't know if he would know what the star means or anything, but you know, and I uh looked at him, I was a little afraid to tell him that but I said to him, "We are Jewish, you know." He didn't answer me for quite a while. And then his own voice sort of betrayed his own emotion and he said, "So am I." I would say it was the greatest hour of my life. And then he asked an incredible question. He said, "May I see the other ladies?" You know, what...what we have been addressed for six years and then to hear this man. He looked to me like a young god. I have to tell you I weighed 68 pounds. My hair was white. And you can imagine, I hadn't had a bath in years. And this creature asked for "the other ladies." And I told him that most of the girls were inside, you know. They were too ill to walk, and he said, "Won't you come with me?" And, and I said, "Sure." But I didn't know what he meant. He held the door open for me and let me precede him and in that gesture restored me to humanity. And that young American today is my husband. | ||
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Kurt Klein Born 1920 Waldorf, Germany 
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And I learned from the military government unit that they had heard of a group of, uh, Polish and Hungarian Jewish women who had been, uh, dumped by their SS guards in a, in a vacant factory building. And, uh, who, uh, had been, uh, liberated, uh, by, by our troops. So I, we knew, we knew, of course, that we had to do something for them, even though we couldn't do anything that day anymore, and in the morning we set out, uh, greatly reinforced, to, to take care of the matter. And I had heard where that factory building was, and I remember approaching it, uh, and getting out of, uh, the jeep and walking across a courtyard where I saw some skeletal figures, uh, uh, trying to, to get some water from a hand pump. But over on the other side, uh, leaning, uh, next to the, against the wall next to the entrance of the building I saw a girl standing, and, and I decided to go, walk up to her. And I asked her in German and in English whether she spoke either language, and she answered me in, in German. And, uh, I, uh, I asked about her companions and she, she said, uh, "Come let me show you." And we went inside the factory. Uh, it was an indescribable scene. There were women scattered over the floor on scraps of straw, some, some of them quite obviously with the mark of death on their faces. Uh, their, they, they, all of them looked just horrible, and of course we could see they were emaciated and, and ill. And something that I have never been able to forget, was an extraordinary thing that happened. The girl who was my guide made sort of a sweeping gesture over this scene of devastation, and said the following words: "Noble be man, merciful and good." And I could hardly believe that she was able to summon a poem by the German poet Goethe, which was called--is called--"The Divine," at such a moment. And there was nothing that she could have said that would have underscored the grim irony of the situation better than, than what she did. And it was a totally shattering experience for me. | ||
| Copyright © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. | ||||
