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Summary Of All But My Life By Gerda Weissman Klein

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World War II has been broken down in fragments personal to those who experienced it first hand. In the memoir, All But My Life, the author, Gerda Weissman Klein, relives the tragedies of survival as a Jewish girl in Poland. To a young girl, only as old as myself, a war tearing through a place she found safety and comfort in was truly overwhelming. 'I had never seen Bielitz (Poland), my home town, frightened. It had always been so safe and secure', page 4.Not only were bombs ripping apart land with fearsome blows and ear ringing crashes, but the German soldiers walked through town acting as bombs themselves, on the lives of 'Jews'. Throughout the beginning of the war, oppression had started to show, causing fear for each other's lives. Most …show more content…

For the first time she was realizing that her life was slowly being picked apart." A few days later a sign was put up in our garden- ONLY GERMANS ALLOWED.", page 43. Gerda and her family were doing the best they could when a letter came saying all able bodied men had to go away to work, this would include Arthur, Gerda's brother, and exclude her father due to a recent heart attack just before the war. Considering the strength and wisdom Arthur had given Gerda, his leaving pulled fiercely at her heart. If nothing else had made this world war reality, a letter from an old friend would do just that; "There they had undressed and lain naked on the stones, face down, and the murderers on horses and brandishing guns trampled the screaming human pavement", page 69. Something so gruesome and horrid had happened upon a family of someone Gerda once knew, and inching into her thoughts was the realization that this could happen to anyone, to her family, even herself. Her life then became an object, something that can be taken away as quickly as her garden, it was her first experience meeting the signifigance of survival. A passionate source of caring came tumbling in when Gerda met Abek, who fell in love with her helplessly, and quickly, it hadn't taken but two

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In the memoir All But My Life, Gerda Weissman Klein, a survivor of the Holocaust, shares her story from before the Holocaust started to when it ended. In her memoir, she shares significant stories such as her times in the camps and moments where she was at her weakest. Gerda shares lots of events in her memoir that changed her life, a huge turning point and a key event in Gerda's life is when she is separated from her family. Gerda and her family were forced into a Jewish ghetto and ordered to work for the German war effort, it wasn't long until all the Jewish people were told they would move out of town and that was the day Gerda was separated from her mom and dad. This affected Gerda greatly because she was now left alone to cope with the

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