Rating: 
Summary: All But My Life
Review: "All buy my life" by Gerda Weissmann Klein is a tragic story about a young girl living life during the Holocaust. It talks about her survival for three years under the control of the Nazis and the story of her amazing liberation.
This book is a great book for most teenagers beacuse it touches on sensative subjects such as family and love, and some aspects of the story can really be related to you.
Although the story is great, at times it may be confusing for readers as it switches greatly and very fast.
This book is an amazing story and it really makes a huge impact on you after you read it.
Rating: 
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".
Rating:
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.
Rating:
Summary: Horrifying, yet true
Review: Gerda Weissman Klein chronicles her experiences as a young Jewish girl in Poland subjected to Nazi atrocities and cruelty. ALL BUT MY LIFE was beautifully written and transports the reader to a world full of suffering, heartbreaking separation, loss, sadism, and, yes, hope, which must never be forgotten. Perhaps books like this should be required reading for high schools all over the country so that the horror caused by such a madman as Hitler will never be forgotten. Thank you, Mrs. Klein, for sharing your remarkable story.
Rating:
Summary: impressive... truly.
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: An unforgettable story
Review: I have just finished reading All But My Life. I was deeply moved by Gerda's strength, but I have also come to admire the language she uses in her memoir. It's amazing that Klein has survived so much and can still retell her tale with such vivid detail. One of the things I enjoyed about her writing was the way she told the reader what would happen to a certain character in the future. For example, when her father is leaving , she writes, "We watched until the train was out of sight. I never saw my father again". Although some readers may be disappointed because they know what will happen, I think that this makes a much stronger impact. The reader knows what Gerda doesn't yet know, and it makes her struggle that much more unforgettable. I would strongly recommend this book to everyone, it's a story that needs to be heard.
Rating:
Summary: A very well written book on the holocaust.
Review: I just finished this book. Amazing would not describe to you what I felt. Gerda went through so much, the death walk, how she survived that,is in itself a miracle. She lived with discrimination, just for being a Jew. I read this book and am brought to the understanding of how very fortunate I am to have never gone through something like this. What a life we all live, everyday with food in abundance and all the things we have. How so many people don't realize how lucky they have it!
However, it is even more than that, being sad for all the Jews who died, and the ones who lived with the painful memories the rest of their lives. It is such a learning experience. Our children need to read these books, to know not to treat anyone unkind and never never to think of ones self as better than any other.
Thank you Gerda for writing this book! What a blessing it was to me, to be able to read your experience. I am so horrified people had to endure these experiences. Nobody should ever have to go through those experiences.
T B, Oregon
Rating:
Summary: Deeply Moving
Review: I picked up this book while visiting the Holocaust musuem in DC. I could not put this book down once I started reading it. What Gerda Weissmann Klein went through is amazing. I wonder if I could of been that strong. My heart broke for Gerda and the loss of her entire family. It makes me sick to know humans are able to do such terrible things to one another.
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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: Be strong, be strong!
Review: These lasts words, Gerda Weissmann hears ring out over the crowd of Jews as they are herded away like cattle to an uncertain end. The person shouting them is her mother who is about to be ripped from her life. The Nazi's have taken everything she holds dear, family, home, friends and now she will fight for all that remains, her life and dignity. This book is a remarkable slice of time and life, written by a true survivor who lived through the times that tried men's souls. As she wades through the atrocities of a Nazi occupation, concentration camps, and a death march amidst freezing temperatures, to be liberated by her one true love, she is true to her mother's request. This is an amazing story that will stay a part of you forever. I am astonished at her strength of spirit and her continued belief in the future. A book doesn't get much better than this. Kelsana 6/19/01
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