[Annotator's Note: Annotator's Note: Gerda Klein can be very difficult to understand at points throughout this clip.] Gerda Klein was the youngest of two children. Losing her older brother is the most painful of her losses. She was a spoiled brat as the youngest of even her cousins. She was close to her father. Her maternal grandmother lived with them. Klein had a good childhood. She had cats for pets. She was born in May 1924. Her neighborhood in Poland [Annotator's Note: Bielsko, now Bielsko-Biała, Poland] was nothing like a ghetto. They had a large home, and she had a nanny until she was 12 years old. She went to a Catholic school, which caused many Orthodox Jews to ask her why. Her mother wanted her to go to finishing school and her father knew she liked to study Latin and Greek. There was no way she would convert to Catholicism though. A rabbi came and gave her Jewish instruction as well. Most of her friends were not Jewish. She experienced anti-Semitism. Every six months they had to write essays. She wrote a story that won first place and was published in the local paper. About six months later, her father asked if the essay was coming again. When she said yes, he told her not to do well because it would not be good for a Jew to win twice. She did not argue the point. The lesson was learned to not make waves. This was 1937 or 1938. Her school did not discuss Hitler's [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] rise to power. It was discussed at home but dismissed as nothing.

[Annotator's Note: Gerda Klein can be very difficult to understand at points throughout this interview.] Gerda Klein's father worked in a factory. Her mother was a perfect housekeeper with an angel's feeling of security. She did needlepoint and Klein still has one that her mother had given a sibling in Turkey. That uncle gave it to Klein for a wedding present when she later married. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Klein to tell her about 3 September 1939 after the Germans invaded Poland.] A lot of people had already started to evacuate, including two of her uncles, who returned to say Poland was being overrun. Klein did not truly understand what was happening. Not much changed. Some neighbors wanted them to make a Nazi flag. Her brother said he would not hang one up. Klein sewed the flag and they hung it for protection. She did not understand the fragility of their lives yet. Rudolf Hess [Annotator's Note: Rudolf Walter Richard Hess; German politician, Deputy Fuhrer 1933 to 1941] rode by in a convertible and said, "good afternoon" to her mother. Klein started to have great concerns a few weeks into the war. She did not return to school right away. Her nanny would take her for walks when she was little, and they would stop by the church. The nanny would tell her she did not have to kneel because she was Jewish and would then put Holy Water [Annotator's Note: water blessed by a priest and used in religious ceremonies, usually in the Christian faiths] on Klein's head. School did not start as usual because of the war. Klein stayed home in their huge garden. Her brother was 17 and that became a great concern. [Annotator's Note: Klein tells the interviewer she wants to review one of her books but it is hard to follow the conversation.] Klein had a close friend named Gerta who had difficulty with skiing due to a problem with her foot. Some friends invited them to go skiing. Klein was interested in a boy who was going, but she decided to stay behind because Gerta could not go. About half a year later, Klein went saw Gerta and called out to her. Gerta said, "I don't talk to Jews." That was the first type of interaction like that from a close friend.

[Annotator's Note: Gerda Klein, a young Jewish girl during the Nazi occupation of Poland, can be very difficult to understand at points throughout this clip.] Klein's brother was taken away with other young men to help build up what had been destroyed in Poland. In Poland, they spoke a lot of German. Her mother did not even speak Polish. Her father did. The atmosphere was definitely German. Jewish boys from 15 and up were taken away. Klein never saw her brother again. Klein looked at her book [Annotator's Note: Klein is the author of several books chronicling her experiences] a couple of months before this interview and it started to bring up things she did not want to think about anymore. Her community was well-known. She had a special relationship with her nanny. No one that she knows of told on them. When her brother was taken it was to rebuild what had been destroyed. She learned later that they were shot at. Some of them swam across the Vistula River [Annotator's Note: in Poland] into what became Russia [Annotator's Note: after the war] and her brother was among them. They were told they had to leave their home. Her father had a slight heart attack before the war and wore his arm in a sling. As they were leaving, he was pushed down for not going fast enough. Before leaving, they were forced to live in the basement of their home with no running water or electric light. She did not understand why this was happening. It became a pleasure if someone talked to her mother when she went grocery shopping. They went into a ghetto in an old part of town. They got one large room together. There were some widows and older people. Klein had one friend in the ghetto. This friend has no recollection of anything now. In the ghetto, they were running out of money. She and her mother knitted sweaters for bread.

[Annotator's Note: Gerda Klein, a young Jewish girl during the Nazi occupation of Poland, can be very difficult to understand at points throughout this clip.] Gerda Klein was very naïve about what was happening. Before the war, her father had a slight heart attack. [Annotator's Note: Klein tells the interviewer she would be happy to give her one of the books she has written which has accurate descriptions of everything that happened.] At one point, the ghetto they were living in was to be liquidated. Her parents packed rucksacks for them. They did not know where they were going. She heard her parents speaking at night about their lives after the war and what would happen. In the morning, her mother gave her raspberry jam, bread, and cocoa that she had saved for her brother's homecoming. It did not taste all that good. Her parents' conversations about their lives to come built up hope in Klein that helped her survive. The morning of the liquidation, her father was taken out for work. Klein and her mother held hands. An SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization] officer asked Klein how old she was, and she answered she was 15. He pushed her to the right and her mother to the left. Her parents were taken to Auschwitz [Annotator's Note: Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp complex in German occupied Oswiecim, Poland]. The children were taken to working camps. Klein jumped out and said she wanted to go with her mother. A man that was in charge of the Jewish community [Annotator's Note: called a Judenrat; an administrative agency imposed by Nazi Germany], Merin [Annotator's Note: Moshe Merin; Klein does not complete the thought]. Klein's father was one of the younger men in their community and had been asked to be the head of the community. He refused and she is proud of that. Merin survived the war. Klein has three children and is close to her son. Her son knows of all of the stories. Klein was thrown back on the truck by Merin who told her she was too young to die. She wants to leave something for Merin in her will because he is why she is alive and has a family.

[Annotator's Note: Gerda Klein, who was in slave labor camp in Poland, can be very difficult to understand at points throughout this interview.] Gerda Klein went to a Jewish holding place [Annotator's Note: a transit camp in Sosnowitz, Poland, or Sosnowiec, Poland, after being removed from her ghetto in Bielsko-Biała, Poland]. People came from different sources of industry to buy slaves. The girls were all fluent in German and were taken to a weaving place [Annotator's Note: unintelligible]. Things were not too bad the first year or two. They were taught to weave, and they got good at it. [Annotator's Note: Klein requests the tape be stopped to relate a story she does not want recorded at 0:40:14.000.] Klein went to a different camp after they started running out of raw materials. They had started with silk, then went to cotton, and finally they were receiving clothes from Auschwitz [Annotator's Note: Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp complex in German occupied Oswiecim, Poland]. She looked for her mother's coat but never found it. The clothes were torn apart to make strings of wool. As things became worse for the Germans, it became more difficult for them. The new camp was a step better. They worked shifts and were still weaving. Klein was lucky as she was a good weaver. They were lucky if they got potatoes in the soup. In the first camp, they had margarine for their bread on Sundays. Her friends gave her a birthday party for her with bread they had saved for her. It started getting worse and worse as far as food is concerned and the work got harder and harder. Klein was never raped and was very lucky that was not a problem in their camp. She was beaten a few times.

[Annotator's Note: Gerda Klein, who was in slave labor camp in Poland, can be very difficult to understand at points throughout this clip.] As the situation for the Germans got worse, things got worse for Gerda Klein and the others in the camps. [Annotator's Note: Klein asks the interviewer if she is interested in reading her book, "All But My Life" which was published in 1957, because it has everything in it. She is the author of several books.] Klein has not talked about things for several years. She had four close friends and only one survived. Klein wrote plays in the camp. [Annotator's Note: Klein is hard to follow and speaks some German about them.] Some of her grandchildren said that old people exaggerate. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Klein to talk about the Death March, a forced march of female Jewish prisoners from the Schlesiersee, now Sława, camp in Poland on 20 January 1945.] The march was bad. Some days they slept in barns, but some days outside. On 15 April 1945, they were marched out at night. They were told that the lights they saw was where the enemies of Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] were dying. They were sprayed with water and left to freeze. She later went to the White House [Annotator's Note: after the war].

[Annotator's Note: Gerda Klein, who was liberated from a slave labor camp can be very difficult to understand at points throughout this clip.] Gerda Klein's closest friend was like a sister to her. A week before the end, they had what was called Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] rest. She knew she could not get up afterwards. She weighed 67 pounds. She knew then that if she made it to the next stop, her brother would be there. She had not seen him in five years. She made it to the next stop [Annotator's Note: in Volary, Czechoslovakia; now Volary, Czech Republic], but he was not there. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Klein what she thought when she saw a car approaching.] She thought they were going to heaven. Her friend was lying on the floor and an SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization; abbreviated SS] man kicked her in the head. He then said she had died by American fire. They were let loose, and the German guards departed. A friend of hers wanted water and Klein went to get it. When she returned, her friend was lying dead. They were in a building, and someone asked who spoke English or German. Klein did and one man [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant Kurt Klein] held the door for her, which was incredible. He became her husband later. She quoted the German poet, Goethe [Annotator's Note: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, and statesman], to him, "Noble be man, merciful and good." Her husband put the quote on their gravestones. Klein is waiting to go there. [Annotator's Note: There is a tape break at 00:59:12.000.] She quoted the poem so he could see what the Germans did despite what the poet's words said. Most of the girls were on the floor dying or dead. She wanted him to see what the Germans did. She hates them with such passion. She has been asked many times to go to Germany to be recognized. She says, "like Hell."

[Annotator's Note: Holocaust survivor Gerda Klein can be very difficult to understand at points throughout this clip.] Gerda Klein has been asked many times to go to Germany to be recognized. She says, "like Hell." Her husband [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant Kurt Klein] was born in Germany. He would be 100 now [Annotator's Note: at the time of this interview] and they are having a big celebration in Germany. Her son wants to go but she told him to forget it. She does not want to have anything to do with them. Her husband's reaction to what he saw [Annotator's Note: when he was part of the US Army who liberated her in Volary, Czechoslovakia, now Volary, Czech Republic, in May 1945] was one of shock. Klein only saw the car coming up to them. They were next to a church that was flying a white banner. She knew it was over. Her husband looked like God in an American uniform. He was understanding and kind. He would come to visit her and bring her flowers and books in the hospital. She cannot say what liberation felt like. She felt like she had been locked up in a room with snakes crawling over her and suddenly she was in the fresh air. Klein wrote books for the world to know and so that those who died would not be forgotten. Talking about it gave her relief. She got the Presidential Medal of Freedom [Annotator's Note: award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors; Klein received hers in 2011.]. She had a horrible loss of her husband almost 20 years ago [Annotator's Note: from the time of this interview]. When she talks [Annotator's Note: about her experiences], it is to remember those who did not survive. She can no longer walk, so she has stopped speaking about it. She has been all over the world, speaking about it. It is the least she can do.