Happy 90th, Gerda Klein! (Polish author of "The Blue Rose," 1974, & human rights activist)

[leno...@yahoo.com]

Aka Gerda Weissmann Klein, she lives in Scottsdale,
Arizona.

She was born to Austrian parents in Bielsko, in 1924,
just four years after it became part of Poland. (I
had the dates backward, originally, so I thought she
was officially Austrian.)

She emigrated to the U.S. in 1946. For a while, she
lived in Buffalo, New York, where Jenny Innerfield's
family lives - and she wrote "The Blue Rose" about
Jenny, who has mental disabilities. It includes photos.
(According to one source, Jenny was born in 1962.)

I remember we had an attractive and reasonably popular
girl named Jenny in our 4th grade class, when the book
was read to us, and she found the coincidence amusing.
I'm sure that helped the rest of us sympathize with the
other Jenny even more.

I found one recent article about Klein - unfortunately,
you need to register.

http://www.aspentimes.com/opinion/11315303-113/evil-bearing-health-witness

http://www.uwec.edu/Activities/programs/forum/gerdaWeissmannKlein.htm
(long and excellent - this has photos of her at the
top - including one of her receiving the Medal of
Freedom from President Obama in 2011)

Excerpts:

"In 1939, 15-year-old Gerda Weissmann's life changed
forever as German troops invaded her home in Bielsko,
Poland. After being forced to live in the basement
of her childhood home for nearly three years, Gerda
was separated from her parents, who were separately
sent to Auschwitz. She spent the next three years in
a succession of labor camps. As World War II was drawing
to a close, the inmates of Gerda's work camp were
sent on a five-month, 350-mile death march under SS
guard to avoid the advance of Allied forces. Of the
more than 2,000 women subjected to exposure, starvation
and arbitrary execution, fewer than 120 were alive
when they were found by American soldiers, abandoned
and left to die in an old factory in Volary,
Czechoslovakia.

"One of the most remarkable chapters in Gerda Weissmann's
life began May 7, 1945, the day she was liberated from
the Nazis. White-haired and 68 pounds, she was one day
shy of her 21st birthday. Her liberator, Lt. Kurt Klein,
was a U.S. Army intelligence officer who also was Jewish.
Klein was born in 1920 in Walldorf, Germany, near
Heidelberg. In 1937, his parents sent him to live with
his sister in Buffalo, New York, where she had gone to
continue the nursing career forbidden to her in Nazi
Germany. His brother fled Nazi oppression the following
year. Ludwig and Alice Klein expected they would be able
to join their children in America soon afterward, but
they ultimately perished in Auschwitz. The family's story
is the centerpiece of the 1994 documentary, America and
the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference, a 90-minute
presentation of the PBS series The American Experience..."

"...Klein has written nine books on a wide variety of
topics for an array of different audiences. These include
The Blue Rose (1974), a story about a developmentally
disabled child. Wings of Epoh (2007) is a poignant story
about a boy with autism and his journey with an unlikely
companion, a butterfly. Promise of a New Spring (1981)
is devoted to teaching young children about the Holocaust,
while A Passion for Sharing (1984) is an award-winning
biography of New Orleans philanthropist Edith Rosenwald
Stern. Her most recent book, One Raspberry (2009), is
dedicated to the memory of her close childhood friend Ilse
Kleinzahler who died in her arms exactly one week before
the liberation."

http://www.myhero.com/go/hero.asp?hero=g_klein
(more of the above)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2011/02/15/2010-presidential-medal-freedom-ceremony
(video - Klein receives her medal after the 28-minute mark)

http://www.csusm.edu/news/articles/nr_OneSurvivorRemembers.html
(Klein tells here of the day she was liberated from the
camps)

http://www.twincities.com/ci_17210844?IADID=Search-www.twincities.com-www.twincities.com
(long profile from 2011)

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education-jan-june12-allbutmylife_05-02/
(PBS interview from 2012, with video)

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.arts.books.childrens/vZEQeoYzLoI
(a LOT more about "The Blue Rose" - only problem is, a
couple of the links no longer work, but luckily, I
included plenty of excerpts from those articles!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerda_Weissmann_Klein

Excerpt:

"In 2013 she published a children's adventure story called
The Windsor Caper, which had remained hidden away since the
1980s, when it was a weekly serial in The Buffalo News."

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0919318/?ref_=fn_nm_nm_1
(filmography - she wrote the Oscar-winning documentary,
"One Survivor Remembers," 1996, which was adapted from
"All but My Life," her 1957 autobiography)

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=vid&hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=gerda+klein&gbv=2&oq=gerda+klein&gs_l=video-hp.3..0.1692.3290.0.3557.11.10.0.1.1.2.213.1105.6j2j2.10.0....0...1ac.1.34.video-hp..3.8.600.6FII3PBCg5E
(LOTS of videos - including her Oscar acceptance speech!
She starts talking at the 1:40 mark or so - I can't wait
to hear it)

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/klein-gerda-weissmann
(article with 13 comments)

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/gerdawklein.html
(another)

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=gerda+klein&pics=on&sortby=7
(a few book covers - this was the only way I could sift
them out from photos of Klein)



Lenona.

[leno...@yahoo.com]

> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.arts.books.childrens/vZEQeoYzLoI
>
> (a LOT more about "The Blue Rose"

From what I can tell, the link inside that has
the entire text is the only website that does.
Trouble is, four of the paragraphs are out of
order - starting with the lines:

"We often talk of the years ahead.
Jenny growing up,
learning to walk,
to talk..."

and ending with:

"At the beginning Jenny cried very often.
She cried more than most babies. Why?"

That is, the first paragraph should start
after the line:

"Her birthday will always be a national holiday."


BTW, the photographer, Norma Holt, died at 94
last July. She lived in Provincetown, Massachusetts
and NYC.

https://www.google.com/#q=%22norma+holt%22++&tbm=vid
(videos of memorial)

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Norma-Holt-Memorial-Page/70450048464
(more about her memorial)

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/01/16/faces/
(tribute from January 2013 by the well-known
columnist Andrew Sullivan)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1580313/
(short documentary)

Unfortunately, I can't find a single photo of Holt's
from "The Blue Rose" other than the cover. (Or any
later photos of Jennifer Innerfield - but I wasn't
really expecting to find any.)


Lenona.

[Michelle D Harris]

A super amount of information here,

Gerda is soon to be 91 - on the 8th of May to be exact - and we are promoting her children's book *The Windsor Caper* Hoping to get it noticed for her. She calls it the only book she has written that has not been rooted in pain.

We thought you might find the website interesting.
http://thewindsorcaper.com/

[leno...@yahoo.com]

Thank you. Good to know!