Holocaust survivor, husband deliver a message of hope

Friday, May 5, 2000 | 12:04 p.m.

WHO: Gerda Weissmann Klein, a World War II Holocaust survivor, and her husband, Kurt Klein, a U.S. soldier who liberated her and hundreds of others from the Nazis.

WHAT: They will discuss the Holocaust, their extraordinary love story and their recently released book, "The Hours After" (St. Martin's Press, $23.95).

WHEN: 7 p.m., May 15.

WHERE: At the Mirage Hotel, sponsored by the Women's Division of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas.

COST: $18 for adults, $5 for students 18 and under. Profits will go to Jewish Family Services to help feed the hungry. Reservations are required. Call 732-0556.

The friends that author Gerda Weissmann Klein made in her youth stay with her every day of her life.

Teenagers like Suze Kunz and Ilse Kleinzahler are hard to forget. Then again, it is difficult for a survivor of the Holocaust to forget the people with whom she struggled so desperately to survive one horrible, endless day after another.

While on a boxcar ride to a concentration camp, Gerda, an eternal optimist, bet Suze that World War II would last for just six months, while Kunz wagered that the war would drag on for several years. At stake was a quart of strawberries in cream.

"When I made the bet with Suze, I absolutely was trying to convince myself that the war would be short," Gerda said. "I really never understood or philosophized what would happen if the Nazis won. I was very young and very unsophisticated."

Gerda lost the bet, but more importantly, survived the long war. Kunz won, but instead of receiving a treat, her reward was a headstone with her name on it in a graveyard at Volary, Czechoslovakia, where she was buried with hundreds of other women who died while on a 350-mile death march from slave labor camps.

In fact, Gerda was one of just 118 survivors of the 2,000 women who were forced to march from Grunberg, Poland -- a cruel and blatant attempt by the Nazis to destroy evidence of the Holocaust as Allied forces closed in on them.

In happier times, in their hometown of Bielsko, Poland, Ilse played uplifting waltzes on her grand piano while Gerda listened intently.

Six years later, along the death march route, Ilse, having just turned 18, found a bruised raspberry in a gutter, wrapped it in a leaf and gave it to Gerda just before she collapsed in a meadow and died in Gerda's arms a week before the liberation.

"A day does not go by that I do not think of them and others," Gerda said.

While many of the women were beaten or randomly executed, others simply succumbed to exhaustion, cold and hunger. Gerda and the other emaciated survivors were found on May 7, 1945 -- a day before her 21st birthday -- in an abandoned factory that the Nazi's had rigged with a bomb that failed to detonate.

One of her rescuers was German-born U.S. Army Lt. Kurt Klein, a Jew who had escaped Nazi persecution in 1937 and would later become Gerda's husband.

In the many addresses Gerda and Kurt give at schools and synagogues each year, they tell audiences that while there was horror and suffering for Jews in Nazi Germany, there also was friendship, love, caring and -- even amid utter desperation -- hope.

Gerda, a former longtime children's issues columnist for the Buffalo (N.Y.) News, and Kurt, a retired print shop owner, will be at the Mirage Hotel on May 15 to speak at an event hosted by the Women's Division of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas.

The couple visited the White House Tuesday where they attended a luncheon hosted by President Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton. They also were among the speakers at the recent one-year anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.

Gerda's survival story was told in a 1995 HBO-produced documentary "One Survivor Remembers," which won an Oscar, Emmy and Cable ACE award.

At the 1996 Academy Awards, Gerda, accompanied to the podium by Kary Antholis, the producer of the 39-minute film, gave what many considered the most moving acceptance speech of the evening. The documentary plays regularly in the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.

"Gerda is a role model for the human spirit," said Jane Schorr, an organizer for the upcoming Las Vegas event. "Her story is inspiring not just for Jewish people but for anybody who has faced extreme hardships."

Beth Miller of the Jewish Federation says: "It is very important that we do not forget the lessons of history. Gerda's story gives hope that shattered lives can be rebuilt."

But fame has done little to change Gerda Klein, who turns 76 on Monday.

"While the Holocaust remains of great significance, it would be presumptuous of me to think (the documentary of her experiences) will hold any historical significance," she said. "It is just a footnote."

When rescued, Gerda weighed just 68 pounds and spent two months in a hospital on a diet of mashed potatoes and eggs. During that time, she wrote often to Kurt.

"It did not take long for me to fall in love with him," she recalled. "When I first saw him he was the embodiment of an incredible dream. He was the only person I had left. I had lost my family and all of my friends. He was extremely handsome and very kind."

Kurt, 79, said he was impressed with Gerda's composure under unspeakable conditions: "She wrote poetry and I visited her twice, probably three times. I knew I wanted to maintain a connection. We had similar backgrounds."

Their mothers and fathers were killed at the notorious Auschwitz death camp.

Gerda and Kurt live in Scottsdale, Ariz. They have three children, one of whom lives in Las Vegas, and eight grandchildren, one of whom also lives in Las Vegas.

Gerda's autobiography, "All But My Life," written in 1957 and in its 47th printing, was the basis for the documentary film that she narrated. Her other books include "The Promise of a New Spring," an account of the Holocaust for young children, and "The Blue Rose," about mental retardation.

In her new book, "The Hours After," co-authored with Kurt and featuring the love letters they wrote leading up to their 1946 marriage in Paris, the message is clear: "Love can conquer all obstacles," Gerda said.

Kurt says the book gives readers a sense of "the arduous road that Gerda took back to normality."

"I am very lucky -- my dreams were fulfilled," Gerda said. "All I ever dreamed about was to be free, have a family, have a home and never be hungry again."

Ed Koch is a reporter for the Sun. He can be reached at (702) 259-4090 or by e-mail at koch@lasvegassun.com