All but My Life

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Summary: Moving account of Holocaust experience
Review: In *All but My Life*, Gerda Weissmann Klein tells us the story of a young girl forced into the events of the Nazi Holocaust. The story of a family torn apart never to see one another again. The story of Nazi work camps and death camps and seemingly endless inhumanity. Sadly, this story was her own.

Klein provided a heartwrenching account of the events leading from her teens to her adult years. We met her family, lived vicariously through her relationships with friends and neighbors and hoped and prayed the Nazis never capturedd the Weissmanns. But the inevitable occurred.

Over the years that Gerda was a prisoner of the Nazis, we learned of the unspeakable acts the Germans performed. And we cried with Gerda through her experiences. And we finally felt the joy of freedom and the love relationship that ensued.

*All but My Life* should go up on our shelves next to *Schindler's List* and *The Diary of Anne Frank*. It's an absolute must read and a classic. Thank you, Gerda, for showing all of us what must not ever happen again.

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Summary: Saved by her boots--and her soul
Review: On the hot June day that Gerda Weissmann left her home for the last time, her father insisted that she wear her hiking boots. Gerda resisted, but an unspoken plea in her father's eye convinced her to strap them on. During a death march from January through April of 1945, those boots saved Gerda Weissmann's life. Many other women died of cold and starvation, but most fell for simple lack of footwear. Her camp sister, with whom she survived the worst horrors in several concentration and slave labor camps, died of exhaustion at a water pump minutes after American liberators freed the women from the march.

Ms. Klein's tale about her boots, screened at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, led me to her book. I wanted to know every detail--although, over the years, I have been privileged to hear many personal accounts from Holocaust survivors I know. Too many still cannot not speak about what they lived through. Millions never had the chance at all. By itself, the silence of the majority makes Ms. Klein's testimony priceless, like every other personal Holocaust chronicle. So does her reminder not to take anything for granted. So does her gem of a soul. Alyssa A. Lappen

Rating:
Summary: impressive... truly.
Review: This book was assigned by my English teacher. The first page, i thought of reading it as a chore. After that, i couldnt put it down. i read the whole thing in two days. It was remarkable!! This showed what the Holocaust was really about. The Holocaust wasn't just about the millions of Jews that were killed- it was about real people being killed, real people losing all hope to live, among Gerda. When liberation day came around, it didn't mean much. The very few survivors still had a life to rebuild. Gerda told her own remarkable story of what happened to her. Gerda goes from camp to camp, hardship to hardship, but learning valuable lessons about life in gerneral on the way. This book deserves way more than 5 stars- everyone should read it.

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Summary: Great Book!
Review: All but my life is a memoir about a girl named Gerda Weissmann having to deal with being Jewish during the Holocaust. She grew up in Poland with her parents and brother Arthur in a small town called Bielitz. Gerda was 16 years old when the war with Germany started. She had to get used to a "not-so-normal" life. From her brother being sent to a camp to teir family having to move into the basement of their own home, Gerda has to adapt to so many new things. Finally when they get settled into their new lives they get a letter from the German government telling them they have to move to a camp. Devastated, their family packs and then settles into their new "shack" they have to call home. A few days after getting used to the shack, they found out that Gerda's father was being sent to a camp and then day later Gerda and her mother get separated from eachouther and both sent to their own camps, never to see each other again.
All her life Gerda had relied on her parents for security. She never had to worry about working because her parents were taking care of their family. How in a new camp, all alone with just her best friend and many other Jewish girls her age, they all had to do everything the Germans told them to.
Gerda is one of the stongest girls I have ever read about. She has to go through so much throighout the whole book. She has to deal with leaving everyone in her family; after having to work in a Jewish camps run by the Germans, she has to walk miles after miles to Auschwitz. During her walk, the war ends and the Jewish survivor are all set free, Gerda meets her future husband while recovering from malnutrition. When she recovers, She and her husband move to the U.S. where she had to get used to being "free" for she had not been for so many years.
"Freedom" is a work I have seemed to always take for granted for I have never been a slave or been told everything that I was allowed to do. All of my life I have been free and after reading this book I have realized how luky I am. Gerda had to deal with so much and never gave up. She was so strong when everything else game up. One of her quotes from the book that always sticks out when I think of her book is "Now I have to live, because I am alone and nothing can hurt me anymore."
She lost everything, and when most people would give up she kept going. This was one of the things that made me enjoy this book. Gerda's ambition was amazing at times, and you just wanted to see what she might do next. The emotion that Gerda puts into this book made it a great book to read, It helps you understand what she was feeling at this time.
After finishing this book I felt I had a different feeling towards life. So many things I can do on a daily basis I take for granted. This book really showed me that the problems i thought i had arent really problems at all. Gerda went through so much during this book and she still continued. Anything you want to do, you can do it if you believe in yourself.
So in conclusion I think this book is a very good book. I would recommend this book to anyone that is interested in the Holocaust because although in may seem sad at times it gives you a whole different prospective on the word "Life".

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Summary: Should be high school required reading
Review: As a Protestant with German ancestors I wish every high school would require this book. Poetically written with emotional sensitivity this far surpasses 'Lord of the Flies' and 'Catcher in the Rye' that my daughter and so many high schoolers are STILL required to read. This is true, it is historical, it is politcal, it is human, we can learn from it on EVERY level. Not only that we come to love Gerda, the author, in the reading of it.

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Summary: A reader's favorite book
Review: This book held my attention from page one, until the very end. I actually have read this book( or at least large parts of it) ten or more times. I was so riveted by Gerda's story that I went to my local library to find out MORE about Gerda. She has written a few other books, interesting too, but this is her best. ALL BUT MY LIFE so impressed me that I felt the need to visit the US Holocaust Museum in Washington,DC. I have chosen this book for my book club selection next month, although I really read it the first time about 5 years ago. I was initially concerned that it was not "mainstream" enough for my book buddies, but...we will see. I have read voraciously for my entire reading life, which would be about 40 years or so, and I think this book IS my absolute favorite.

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Summary: One womans life in the Holocaust
Review: Gerda Weissmann is a Jew living in the part of Poland that was attached to the Austro-Hungarian Empire during WWI. She lives a comfortable life with her parents and her brother Arthur, and then on September 3, 1939 everything changes.

The Nazis have invaded Poland and Jews are not allowed to do almost anything they once could. Several months later Arthur is sent to a labor camp and except for a couple of letters is never heard from again. Things spiral out of control quickly after that for Gerda and her family. At first they are forced to move into the basement of their house and then they are forced to move to a ghetto.

After they are moved to the ghetto the family is separated and Gerda is forced to go to several concentration camps before finally being forced to go on a death march near the end of the war. In a little town in Czechoslovakia the march ends and an American force liberates the girls that had been forced to go on the march.

One of the Americans who liberated Gerda was Kurt Klein who was born in Germany, but sent to live in America with his older siblings once the war started. Gerda and Kurt soon fell in love and after about a year of meetings they finally got married and moved to Buffalo, New York where they started a family.

This is a good story for anybody who likes to read about the holocaust as well as anybody who likes stories of horrible things happening to people, but the people being able to overcome the pain and move on and be happy.

Rating:
Summary: All But My Life
Review: All But My Life is a must-read book that every girl should read. This non-fiction story is about a young girl named Gerda Weissmann Klein, also the author, who lived during the Holocaust and World War II. She was born in Bielitz, a city in Poland. Gerda, a little girl, was sitting in her living room one day and she heard "Heil Hitler, Heil Hitler." She had never seen anyone in her town so afraid. Gerda noticed that signs started to appear everywhere. For example, No Jews or Dogs Allowed. Gerda was one of the innocent Jews that lived in her hometown.
First, the German police officers took her brother away. Then, the police officers made her mother, father, and her move into a basement. They had to gather up many things as possible and had to move down there. It was hard for them to gather up stuff because usually her dad was the strongest, but he could not pick much up. He could not pick much up because he suffered from a broken arm. Could you imagine gathering up all your life's precious things that you behold in a few minutes or you would be shot? Only the basement was the beginning.
The family was then transported to a ghetto where German soldiers ruled. There, Jews were divided into to groups of men and women. Children had to stay with their mothers if they told the SS man that they were an older age then they were. Gerda's dad went with the men to one concentration camp, while her mom and her went to another. Gerda's mom and her stayed into the same concentration camp for awhile.
From that camp, she was separated from her mom and put a cart with people her own age. One of the people on the cart she knew was her best friend. She saw mostly everything a Holocaust revisionist would deny. She saw gas chambers, whips, people killed, people shot into their grave, some of them included her friends she made, and crematories. Gerda always prayed every night for the war to be over.
The story takes you from one concentration camp to the next where Gerda moves. This is one of my favorite books I ever read. To find out what happens to her at the end, you will have to read it! Trust me, this book is a real page-turner.

Rating:
Summary: All But My Life
Review: I read this book as a 7th grader because my sister said it was good but that was an understatement! This is the best book I have ever read in my whole life! I would really recomened this book!

Rating:
Summary: Yet Another Moving Holocaust Memoir
Review: Gerda Weissman was born in relative luxury in a Polish town in the 1920's. Virtually until the day the Nazis invade Poland in 1920, her life is filled with ease and happiness. Then, because the family is Jewish, tragedies begin in quick succession. Gerda's older brother is taken away by the Nazis, the three remaining family members (Gerda, her mother, and her father) must give up their home and live in the ghetto, and finally, most tragically of all, Gerda is separated from her parents. Never knowing where they went or even if they are alive, Gerda must spend the next five years of her life in German labor camps.

As I read this book, one aspect of it (and this aspect is in many Jewish Holocaust memoirs) continually astounded me. While the events Gerda writes about are totally inhumane and depressing, she somehow manages to find at least the smallest good thing about every experience in the book. She not only remembers the horrors of the camps, she remembers her true friends there and the camaraderie between the women. She not only recounts the tragic leaving of her brother, she writes of the legacy of courage he left her. And when the war is finally over, Gerda's writing tells us of sorrow and loss, yet also of the exciting and promising life ahead of her. It is, as always, refreshing and inspiring to read such an honest yet optimistic memoir. Written with grace and dignity, "All But My Life" is a well-done Holcaust memoir.