Klein, Kurt 1920-2002

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KLEIN, Kurt 1920-2002

PERSONAL: Born 1920, in Walldorf, Germany; died April 19, 2002, in Guatemala; immigrated to United States, 1937; American citizen; married Gerda Weissmann, 1946. Religion: Jewish.

CAREER: Philanthropist. Gerda and Kurt Klein Foundation, founder, 2000. Previously worked as a printer. Military service: Served in U.S. Army, 1942-45.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Gerda Klein, All but My Life, Hill & Wang (New York, NY), 1957.

(With Gerda Klein) The Hours After: Letters of Love and Longing in the War's Aftermath, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2000.

ADAPTATIONS: Memories, Voices, and Choices: Lessons Learned from the Holocaust and Global Genocides, a five-part television series, was produced by the Massachusetts Corporation for Educational Telecommunications.

SIDELIGHTS: Kurt Klein was born in 1920 and grew up in Walldorf, Germany. When Chancellor Adolf Hitler came to power in the late 1930s, Klein's parents became uneasy about their country's future. Klein was forced to quit school shortly after his bar mitzvah because there was so much prejudice against Jews, so he remained home and taught himself English by reading about the United States. When he was sixteen, his parents urged their children to leave Germany so they could stay safe. Klein's sister immigrated to the United States, Klein followed her in 1937, and Klein's brother joined them in 1938. Klein, who arrived in the United States with ten dollars in his pocket, worked as a typesetter, dishwasher, and cigar store clerk, trying to save enough money to enable his parents to join them in America.

When Jewish homes and businesses were attacked in the infamous Kristallnacht in Germany, Klein's parents' home was vandalized. In 1940 his parents were arrested for being Jewish and were sent to a detention camp in France. Although Klein and his siblings tried to get their parents visas to the United States, they didn't have enough money to pay the costs, and their efforts were stifled by bureaucratic rules. By the time they got the visas, in 1942, their parents had been deported to Auschwitz concentration camp in Eastern Europe.

In that same year, Klein was drafted to serve in the U.S. Army to fight against the country of his birth; his ability to speak German allowed him to work in intelligence. While on patrol, he heard that a group of survivors from a concentration camp had been found near a warehouse, and he and other troops went to investigate the situation and liberate the survivors.

One of the prisoners was a young woman named Gerda Weissmann. All of her family, except an uncle, had been killed by the Germans. After three years in a concentration camp, she and 2,000 others had been forced to walk 300 miles before being abandoned in the booby-trapped warehouse; only 150 of them had lived through the death march.

Klein asked the survivors if anyone spoke German or English. Weissmann replied warily, "We are Jewish, you know," according to an AP article reprinted on MyHero.com. Klein hesitated, then said, "So am I." Weissmann later recalled, "It was the greatest hour of my life," noting the kindness and courtesy he showed to the survivors. Klein helped Weissmann and the other survivors to safety and medical care.

Klein was impressed by Weissmann's positive attitude and faith in humanity despite all the horrors she had undergone, and while she recuperated at a displaced-person camp, he frequently visited her.

At the close of the war, Klein learned that his parents had been killed at Auschwitz. He asked Gerda to marry him, and she accepted. They then moved to Buffalo, New York, where he worked as a printer.

In the late 1980s the Kleins moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, where they became involved in philanthropic work. They lectured about their lives and what they had learned from their involvement in war, imprisonment, and liberation. Gerda Klein wrote a book, All but My Life, telling her story; Klein was its editor.

The Kleins also collaborated on a book titled The Hours After: Letters of Love and Longing in War's Aftermath, a collection of the letters they wrote to each other during the year before they were able to marry, revealing their love, their plans for the future, and the effects of the war on their lives. In Publishers Weekly, a reviewer called the book "engrossing," and in Library Journal, Kay Dushek called it an "amazing testament to steadfast love."

In 2000 the couple created the Gerda and Kurt Klein Foundation, a nonprofit organization that helps young people learn about the world and to incorporate the values of tolerance, respect for others, and community service, with an emphasis on ending world hunger. On the foundation's Web site, the Kleins wrote: "Our dream is to create the opportunity for young people to understand injustice in the world, and translate that understanding into positive action." And, they noted, "We choose to share the details of our lives' darkest hours, to preserve the memory of the Holocaust and draw on the lessons learned from that period in history, in the hope that our message will enlighten students and nurture the seeds of social responsibility that grow in their hearts."

In cooperation with the Massachusetts Corporation for Educational Telecommunications, the Klein Foundation developed a five-part television series titled Memories, Voices, and Choices: Lessons Learned from the Holocaust and Global Genocides. The series examines genocide, from the Holocaust to current times, and promotes the ideas of tolerance, learning from the past, and assuming responsibility for the suffering of others. The series was nominated for an Emmy award.

Klein died on April 19, 2002, while on a lecture tour in Guatemala. According to an Associated Press story posted on MyHero.com, a family friend said of the Kleins, "Their life together was like a fairy tale. They carried a message around the world—how you can turn any horrible degree of evil into good, with enough courage and faith."