Born in Bielsko, Poland, on May 8, 1924, Klein enjoyed a “normal life” until the Nazi invasion in September 1939, according to her obituary. She and her family were forced into a slum and eventually her parents were deported to the Auschwitz camp. Klein never saw them or her brother again.
Klein endured years of slave labor and concentration camps before being forced to walk the 35-mile death journey from Poland to what is now the Czech Republic.
Against all odds, Klein survived. US troops, including Lieutenant Kurt Klein, whom she would later marry, liberated her on May 7, 1945, the eve of her 21st birthday. At the time, she weighed only 68 pounds and her hair had turned gray, the obituary said. She and Kurt married in Paris on June 18, 1946, 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-winning HBO documentary, “One Survivor Remebers.”
Throughout the years, Klein has received numerous awards and honors, including in 1997, when President Clinton appointed her to the Board of Holocaust Memorial Museums of the United States, and in 2010, when she accepted received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. She also spoke before the United Nations General Assembly in January 2006 at the first celebration of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, her son told CNN.
“Our family has always believed that mom and dad’s greatest achievement was that they were able to come out of the Holocaust and create for themselves and their children a completely normal life in the United States. that they and others who’ve experienced that horror were able to do so it’s not remarkable for us,” said Jim Klein.
