Gerda Wiessmann Klein Foundation
Essay by review • December 29, 2010 • Essay • 287 Words (2 Pages) • 1,069 Views
Gerda Wiessmann Klein has done much with her life since the holocaust. She has written several books, the most famous one being her first book about her experiences in the holocaust, All But My Life. She has also accepted an oscar in 1995 because of a documentary made about her in the concentration camps, One Survivor Remembers. Gerda's experience in the concentration camps was without family, as both her parents were killed in Auschwitz, and her brother was sent away to work camps and never heard from again. Gerda transferred to many different camps across Poland, eventually landing in Gruenberg where she and 2,000 other prisoners were sent on the death marches. Gerda Wiessmann was one of the 120 to survive in that march, leading to her liberation shortly after.
During her recuperation, she weighed 68 pounds, and her hair had turned grey, but she had yet to loose her strength. While in the hospital she met and became close to an American solider named Kurt Klein. The two married in Paris in 1946. Since Gerda Wiessmann Klein's experience in the concentration camps, she has made her life's goal to spread awareness about world hunger, in the hopes that no child should ever experience the hunger she once did. Both her and Kurt established The Gerda and Kurt Klein Foundation, a non profit organization to help children in need of food, and also teaching students to locally help prevent hunger in their national program, "kNOw Hunger."
Kurt Klein passed away on April 19, 2002, during a visit to Guatemala, and Gerda Wiessmann Klein is still trying to raise awareness, spreading her messages of tolerance and peace in the hopes that the tragedies she experienced will never be repeated.
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