Born in Bielsko, Poland, on May 8, 1924, according to her obituary, Klein had lived a “normal life” until the Nazis invaded in September 1939. She and her family were forced into a ghetto and her parents were eventually deported to Auschwitz. Klein never saw them or her brother again.
Klein endured years in slave labor and concentration camps before being forced to walk a 35-mile death march from Poland to what is now the Czech Republic.
Against all odds, Klein survived. American troops, including Lieutenant Kurt Klein, the man she would later marry, liberated her on May 7, 1945, the eve of her 21st birthday. At the time, she weighed just 68 pounds and her hair had turned gray, the obituary says. She and Kurt were married on June 18, 1946 in Paris and later settled in Buffalo, New York.
Klein wrote about her experiences during the war in her autobiography, “All But My Life,” which was the basis for the Oscar and Emmy award-winning HBO documentary, “One Survivor Remembers.”
Over the years, Klein has received numerous awards and honors, including in 1997, when President Clinton appointed her to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Council, and in 2010, when she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. . She also addressed the United Nations General Assembly in January 2006 at the first celebration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, her son told DailyExpertNews.
“Our family has always believed that Mom and Dad’s greatest achievement is being able to come out of the Holocaust and create a completely normal life for themselves and their children in the United States. So, to us, is nothing short of remarkable,” said Jim Klein.
