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Jul 07, 2009

Heidi rated it:

I should probably start out by saying that I'm not totally obsessed with WWII, Holocaust, concentration camps, terror, misery and death (here it comes...) BUT, I think I enjoy these stories because in each one, there is a story of HOPE, perseverance, and a remarkable accounts of humanity and triumph. It gives me a renewed sense of well-being, humanity, tolerance, strength and hope. No matter how bad my life seems to be, I can more easily remember that I really and truly have it SO very good.
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2 comments like (8 people liked it)

Sep 27, 2008

Wendy rated it:

All But My Life by Gerda Weissman Klein is a memior written about the authors's experiences during World War II. Gerda Weissman Klein was a Polish Jew along with her family who encountered many hardship from the German Nazis. When they first invaded, the Jews got threatened by German Nazi who invaded Poland on Spetember 1, 1939. It took the Germans only 8 days to conquer Poland. When they invaded they tooks Jews gold, autmobiles, bicycles, and radios. When they invaded the Jews were forced out o More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 07, 2008

Maggie rated it:

This was a favorite book from middle school. My mom wouldn't let me read Night yet (which of course I immediately stole off the bookshelf and devoured) so I started with this. Being a young girl myself, I think the story affected me in a way that it could not have if I had read at an older age. The copy I read was my mother's from when she was a girl. I lost this wonderful book (I could barely keep track of my own head in middle school) and cried bitterly. I still feel horrible about it. It woul More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

May 09, 2008

Jasmine rated it:

All but my life was a good book but it was also very depressing. Gerda's story was really touching. It started out in poland with her and her family trying to protect her father from knowing of the war. Because of his illness the family tried to keep stressful news under wraps. Soon it was hard for them to keep the news secret when the Nazi's invade poland and separate the families. This is the last time Gerda sees her brother. While at camp She is allowed to write letters and writes her brother More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 08, 2008

Rachel rated it:

It's painful to read--just as "Night" or "The Hiding Place" are. I had to put it down for a while to regain perspective: Life seems pretty gloomy when the stark reality of the holocaust is explained so eloquently. I picked it up again, though, and the "happy" ending was a reprieve.("Happy" being fairly trite, considering 6 million Jews tortured and killed.) How does this type of horror happen? Who could kill a child? A family? What lies dormant in us More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jun 02, 2008

Kelli rated it:

This is one of my most favorite books. Learned many things about life. It inspired me in many ways. I hope i never look the other way when someone is suffering. Makes me so grateful to tuck my kids in bed each night in clean sheets, with a soft pillow, in a warm house, well feed, and most importantly they are safe (no one trying to hurt them). We are truly blessed with the comforts of life right down to running hot water for bathing and being able to floss our teeth! Whenever I think my life More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 30, 2008

Laura rated it:

Ilse, a childhood friend of mine, once found a raspberry in the concentration camp and carried it in her pocket all day to present to me that night on a leaf. Imagine a world in which your entire possession is one raspberry and you give it to your friend."

Gerda Weissman grew up in Poland. She has a loving, close family. We see the disintegration of normal life as her family is torn apart.

Gerda is deported and sent to various work camps and concentration camps. In th More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Sep 28, 2008

Selina rated it:

This is my all time favorite book because what it did for me
during a very difficult time in my life. I was struggling with a horrible case of postpartum depression and, somehow, I came across this book that changed my life. I can never again TRULY feel sorry for myself. The trials I have endured are nothing compared to this story. It reminded me to be grateful for a crying baby, food in the refrigerator, a house to clean, a husband to kiss. Most of all I loved the way it ends!! Love More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 30, 2011

Lisa rated it:

I read this book because my high school kids are reading it in their Holocost class. I thought the author did a great job in telling her story and that of those who lived through it with her. One of the parts that really made me think was toward the end of the book when they were forced to march with little or no food and in very cold conditions. She stated how she stopped praying to God. She didn't know why because she was closer to her Maker at this point than ever. Later she thought abou More...

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Oct 23, 2011

Donna rated it:

Gerda Weissman Klein’s memoir of her life during World War II is harrowing to say the least. Separated from her loved ones, surrounded by fear and tragedy, Gerda’s life is turned upside down overnight and she faces years of anguish, pain and grief. Despite it all she retains an immense sense of what is right and fair, often putting the needs of others above her own and often putting her own life at risk in order to stand up for her principles.

Although the details given in Gerda’s acc More...

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Jan 18, 2011

Jocelyn rated it:

I have read a few Holocaust memoirs (not a ton) and this is one of the best so far. What I liked was the way the author portrayed herself. She conveyed a sense of a strong personality, sensitive to others but not backing away from her values or her reality. It's a horrible story, of course; she spends her late adolescence in a series of work camps and ultimately survives a gruelling "death march." She loses her home, her parents, her brother, all her possessions (except for a pair of s More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

May 19, 2010

Allison rated it:

Perhaps it is a sense of morbidity that leads me to read the most heartbreaking memoirs. Perhaps it is an innocent interest in history. I think, though, that it is because I experience my life - my comfortable, easy life - so much more richly when I see how others have suffered and survived.

All But My Life is Gerda Weissmann's story of her experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust. It is unlike all of the other Holocaust memoirs I have read, perhaps because it is the first in which More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 13, 2009

Christina rated it:

At 9:10 a.m. Gerda Weissmann’s life ended; the Nazis invaded Poland and red, black, and white flags with swastikas hung from her neighbor’s windows. Uncertainty turns into upheaval first with the deportation of her brother and then with the loss of her family’s home. Her ill father becomes listless; her mother withdrawals into herself. And almost as quickly as it begins Gerda finds herself in the Bielitz ghetto where she separated from her father, then to a transit camp where she is separated fr More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 03, 2011

Lindy rated it:

Wow! I couldn't put this book down. Being a true story, I at least knew Gerda lived, but it is truly a miracle that she did. I cannot possibly fathom all that she went through, the terrors and horrors of Nazi occupation never cease to amaze me, but I am so grateful for her willingness to face those horrors and let the world know. I appreciated Gerda's use of foreshadowing to prepare me for the obvious devastation that followed. I know that sounds funny concerning a Holocaust story, of course the More...

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Jun 04, 2010

Jennifer rated it:

I enjoyed how this memoir started with German occupation rather than in the work/concentration camps. Somehow the in-town treatment of the Jews was almost more nausea-inducing to me than the more-commonly-repeated tales of the camps---not because the treatment was less humane in the towns but because the general public knew what was going on and let it happen; it wasn't just the military being cruel behind closed doors. The author keeps a rather calm tone throughout, which made it even more chil More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 05, 2010

Amanda rated it:

Gerda Weissmann Klein was born in Poland, in 1924. She had a pretty happy childhood and family and friends who cared about her significantly. But in 1939, when Gerda was just fifteen years old, Hitler invaded and conquered Poland. Gerda and her family were eventually separated and Gerda was sent to different labor camps, but luckily she had friends to help keep her going. Gerda always knew that she would be liberated and after five years she finally was. This memoir was written by Gerda and it t More...

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Mar 10, 2011

Emily rated it:

As someone who is not a native speaker of English, Gerda Weissmann Klein writes masterfully. Her recollections of the time she spent as a young Jewish girl under Nazi rule are vividly, heartbreakingly eloquent. Klein spent the first part of the war with her parents in their home town of Beilitz, Poland, marginalized by the German invaders and forced to live with more and more hardship before finally being separated from them and sent to a series of work camps. After being forced to march from th More...

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Aug 19, 2009

Mary rated it:

Gerda revealed a lot of her personality as she wrote her memoirs, but she also left a lot up to the reader to assume. She described actions and reactions of other people, but did not go into detail what inspired them to treat her that way. I kind of liked it that way. For example, I get a bit put off when people say things like, "I always got a lot of attention because of my great beauty." I would much rather prefer to infer on my own that if 2 men loved her at first sight, she was More...

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Mar 06, 2011

Chris rated it:

This book is about a girl named Gerda and her life during WWII and the Holocaust. It talks about her life in the camps and the things the Nazis made her do. Her family is shown throughout the book and talks about what is going on with them during this hard time. None of this was faked and it gives every excruciating detail. This book is one of the few that help symbolize how we need to learn from the past to make sure this will never happen again. To actually know some of the things that went on More...

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May 21, 2010

b.yost rated it:

At this point, I've read quite a few Holocaust memoirs and judging their "authenticity" or rating them doesn't seem to be a task for which i'm qualified. I can say, however, that if one is looking for a memoir that seems to depict the horrors of war in the most detail with complete humility, read Primo Levi. Klein tells a coming-of-age story with the continuous thread of hope throughout. I'm not saying I think this devalues the authenticity, I think it merely makes the book about More...

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Mar 02, 2011

Devon added it

Gerda Klein opens your eyes with this first hand account of what her family and herself went through during the Holocaust of WW2. She vividly recounts the many years she spent in the various concentration camps and the three months she was to endure in the death marches that took place towards the end of the war. This book is truly an eye opening experience that I will never forget. It has made me appreciate the life that I have been fortunate to live!

This book is very well written. It More...

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May 16, 2011

Stephanie rated it:

This book was written by my dear friend's grandmother. I have been lucky enough to know her, learn from her and be loved by her. What an amazing blessing that have been able to get a first hand account of a Holocaust experience that I will be able to one day share with my children. It is likely that by the time my children are old enough to understand and appreciate this story, there will no longer be any survivors alive. "Grandma Gerds" as I call her is an incredible woman that I a More...

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Jul 14, 2011

Beverly rated it:

How can a book about losing everyone and being imprisoned during the Holocaust make someone feel good about her own life? I saw it happen to thousands as they read the book, watched the movie, talked to each other and listened to Gerda Klein. Person after person thanked her for helping them realize how much life had to offer them. She is an inspiring person and this book makes you realize how important the little things are in your life. The incident with her friend (who she was previously jealo More...

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Nov 13, 2011

Judy rated it:

The World War II experiences of a Polish Jew who survived the concentration camps, although all of her family members and most of her friends were killed. She eventually married the American who helped liberate her camp in Czechoslovakia and moved to the U.S. In the telling of her story, the author sounded very honest to me, not glossing over her own shortcomings or over-dramatizing her experiences. I also appreciated her relative fairness: Not all Jews were saints, and not all Germans were de More...

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Dec 30, 2010

Elise rated it:

Good biography about the holocaust. The epilogue is actually what pushed it from a 3 to a 4 star for me. So interesting to hear her thoughts about how she has made her way through life since the war ended - what remain as challenges and how she deals with those horrible memories, etc. One paragraph describes the normalcy of her pre-war life with her parents and brother, together in their living room, and how this memory pulled her through the harshest times, and eventually merged with her lif More...

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Jan 12, 2011

Lesa rated it:

My students took part in an unforgettable video conference with Mrs. Klein. This is a truly remarkable woman with a story of personal triumph through the worst of times. Her gripping account of survival and personal healing is told honestly. She has a vivid memory of her experiences and recounts with amazing details a history that most of us would want to forget. She tells not only her own story, but those of her family members, friends, and complete strangers who did not survive long enough More...

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May 18, 2010

Al_anna rated it:

Gerda Weissmann Klein recalls her life as a Jew during the Holocaust in Poland, and in the other countries she traveled to and worked in as a prisoner. I have to come clean with the fact that this book is the first autobiography I have ever finished in my life! I have always enjoyed fiction and nonfiction alike, but biographies were always dull challenges until this one. Though the prose leaves a little to be desired, I surprise myself when I say that couldn't put the book down.

I l More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 11, 2011

Valarie added it

Gerda Klein and her family came to our small community in rural Alaska to speak. She went beyond the cruel experiences and memories the holocaust that she and those she knew endured. Her's was a message of hope, human dignity, and the ability to take the worst and use it for the best. She used her life and experiences to help others and brought to us an appreciation for what we have and what we can do. Thank you Gerda for your testimony, it was inspiring and life changing. The moments I had More...

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Apr 23, 2010

Mattie rated it:

What an amazing and inspiring book about Jewish woman's hope and love in WWII! Mrs. Klein wrote this book wondefully and her tale is inspiring. Even after the evil events that befell her Gerda was able to look back and think of Arthur and her parents and continue to go on living for them. If something like this ever happened to me, I'm not sure that I'd be able to fight for my life as much as she had. This book was so good that I even had my English teacher read it and she said that she was able More...

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Nov 08, 2010

CI 546_Cynthia Valenciana rated it:

This is the book of a happy fifteen year old girl leading a normal life until her town is shaken with the horrific fear and reality of war. The book tells the story of Gerda and her incredible story of being separated from her family, hiding in fear and ultimately fighting to stay alive in a concentration camp. The book shows the awful reality of a young girl being forced to grow up much too fast and face the unthinkable cruelties of war. i rated the book a four because I thought that some pa More...

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