March is Women’s History Month, an annual observance to highlight the contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society. Each Friday during March, we are casting a spotlight on a woman leader who helped to transform Jewish Buffalo and Western New York. For this final week, we cast a spotlight on a national figure from Buffalo, Gerda Weissmann Klein, Holocaust Survivor, gifted writer, educator, and public speaker.
Gerda Weissmann (later Klein) was born in Bielsko, Poland, on May 8, 1924. Growing up into a middle-class Jewish family, Gerda Weissmann’s life was shattered when she was 15 years old in September 1939. German forces invaded Poland and within a month her brother Artur was taken away by the Nazis never to return. Gerda and her parents were forced into the basement of their family home as it was stripped. Gerda was eventually separated from her parents, who later died in the concentration camps, while she was sent into a series of slave labor camps at Marzdorf, Landshut and Gruenberg. After barely surviving these, Gerda was forced onto a Death March ending in Volary, Czechoslovakia on May 7, 1945.
Gerda’s future husband, Kurt Klein and his American military unit helped liberate this group of female slave laborers and prisoners. Transferred to hospital, Gerda became critically ill. Kurt visited often and learned that Gerda had lost almost all her family including her parents, Julius and Helene Weissmann and her only sibling, Artur Weissmann. Despite many obstacles, and after a year of separation while Kurt fulfilled his remaining military duties, they married in Paris in June 1946.
Gerda and Kurt settled in Buffalo in 1947. Together they raised a family, welcoming three children: Leslie, Vivian, and James. In the meantime, Gerda began to speak about her experiences of the Holocaust from the late 1940s. She emerged as a gifted writer and speaker, able to reach adults and children, on a range of subject areas. Her most widely acclaimed work is the story of her own survival during the Holocaust. All But My Life was published in 1957 and Kurt served as editor. A testimony of Gerda’s hope and survival against all odds, it led to a life of educating about the Holocaust and the value of tolerance and community service.
To build greater understanding about the Holocaust and the need for action against totalitarianism, antisemitism and hatred towards others, Gerda spoke about her experiences in various settings. Her public speaking commitments grew throughout the 1950s and 1960s, with a focus on youth, college, and interfaith circles audiences as well as Jewish organizations and agencies. She was actively involved with United Jewish Appeal (UJA) and Israel Bonds and traveled extensively to Jewish Federations around America, and was especially sought after, following her speech at the National UJA Conference in 1962. She was a mission leader for visits to Israel as part of the Women’s Division of the UJA from the mid-1960s.
During the 1970s, she was the recipient of many local awards. She received the Women of the Year Award from the Buffalo section of the National Council of Jewish Women in 1974. The following year, in 1975, she received a Doctor of Humane Letters from Daemen University, then known as Rosary Hill College (and later Daemen College. Other awards followed recognizing her educational and civic contributions, including D’Youville College and Buffalo Hadassah’s, Myrtle Wreath Award in 1985.
As part of a group of local survivors, in the 1980s, she became part of a founding group for the Holocaust Resource Center (today’s Holocaust Education Resource Organization – HERO – a program of the Buffalo Jewish Federation).
In addition to her work in Holocaust education, Gerda engaged in raising understanding around developmental differences. She was one of the Founders of the Blue Rose Foundation, which emerged from a book she wrote about a young girl (and her neighbor) who was facing severe health challenges, made worse by lack of empathy and understanding. This book, The Blue Rose, was recently reissued in 2008. Always interested in the work of social justice, she researched the life of Edith Rosenwald Stern in another book, chronically Edith Stern’s support of educational institutions serving African Americans, building on the legacy of her father, Julius Rosenwald. Stern helped build Dillard University in New Orleans, in partnership with the African American community, and was active in other causes for social justice.
The Kleins moved from Buffalo to Scottsdale, Arizona, to be closer to two of their children. Retirement was short lived. In the wake of a mass school shooting perpetrated by students, Gerda and Kurt spoke at the invitation of officials at Columbine High School in 1999 and were featured in a special edition of Nightline: A Holocaust Survivor Speaks at Columbine High School that aired in March 2000. That same year Gerda and Kurt Klein also authored a book together, based on a compilation of their letters during their one-year separation after the Holocaust, entitled The Hours After: Letters of Love and Longing. This would later become the source of a theatre play: Gerda’s Lieutenant. In 2001, Chapman University awarded Kurt Klein and Gerda Weissmann Klein, a Joint Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.
Gerda provided her personal accounts and her experience of antisemitism and life under Nazism to numerous educational organizations. In addition, believing in the power of testimony, she widely recorded her story in Buffalo, her adopted hometown, and for national Holocaust organizations including the Shoah Foundation. You can watch her video testimony here.
President Clinton appointed Gerda to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council and President Obama honored her with the President’s Medal of Freedom. Part of her citation stated: “Gerda Weissmann Klein’s life is a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit. By sharing her stories and encouraging others to see themselves in one another, Gerda Klein has helped to advance understanding among all people.
In 2024, HERO created the Abek Student Upstander Award which recognizes young individuals who demonstrate exceptional courage, kindness, and a commitment to justice in their communities. The award is named in memory of Abek Feigenblatt a young artist whose selfless acts provided vital aid to Gerda while she was imprisoned in Nazi labor camps. Established by Gerda’s adult children, the Abek Student Upstander Award will honor students who embody the characteristics of an upstander- someone who speaks out against injustice, inequality, or unfairness. This year, two students will be granted the award, a middle school student in grades 6-8 and a high school student in grades 9-12. Nominations for an outstanding student can be submitted to bit.ly/abekaward2025 by April 18. To be considered for the award, students must accept the award in person at the HERO Awards Ceremony on June 9.
Excerpts from today’s Spotlight were written by historian Dr. Chana R. Kotzin, former director of The Jewish Buffalo History Center.
