All But My LifeContext All But My Life is Gerda Weissmann Klein’s memoir of her experiences during World War II. Klein was born on May 8, 1924, in Bielitz (now Bielsko), Poland. She remembers her childhood as being happy, even idyllic. The Weissmanns were a Jewish family, and their town had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before 1919. Like most of the residents in the area, the Weissmann family was bilingual, speaking both Polish and German, and Klein’s older brother, Arthur, studied English as well. Klein’s father, Julius, was a business executive who had lived in Bielitz for more than twenty years, and Helene, her mother, was born there, as were both Klein and Arthur. The family was horrified when German Nazi forces invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Despite the fact that Britain and the United States declared war on Germany two days later, it took the Nazis only eighteen days to conquer Poland. Soon afterward, the entire Jewish population of Bielitz was forced to register with the police, and soon, sanctions were imposed against the Jews. First, they were required to turn in all gold, automobiles, bicycles, and radios. Many Jews were forced out of their homes, and the local temple was burned down. In October of 1939, all Jewish men between the ages of sixteen and fifty were forced to register, whereupon they were sent in cattle cars to rebuild parts of Poland that had been destroyed by Allied attacks. Klein’s brother was sent to the interior of Poland in one of these transports. In December, the Weissmann family was forced to move into the basement of their home, while the woman who had been their laundress took over the main house. After Christmas, the Nazis restricted the local Jewish population’s food supply by stamping their ration cards with the word “JEW,” entitling them to less than half the amount of food that non-Jews received. Their coal rations were also cut, and they were forced to wear blue and white armbands and, later, yellow stars that identified them as Jews. Before the war began, Bielitz had a Jewish population of nearly 8,000 people. As news of the German treatment of Jews reached them, however, more and more Jews fled to the Russianoccupied parts of Poland that had not been claimed during the German takeover. By the spring of 1940, the Jewish population in Bielitz had dwindled to little more than three hundred people, most of them children and the elderly. Like Klein’s brother, all of the young men had left in the transports. The young female population was declining as well, as more and more families left or sent their children out of the country. On April 19, 1942, all of the remaining Jews in Bielitz were ordered to move into a newly constructed Jewish ghetto. In May of 1942, shortly after Klein’s eighteenth birthday, all Jews were required to register for work. Those who did not comply were sent to Auschwitz, a nearby concentration camp intended to enable the Nazis to kill those people who were deemed not useful to the German cause. Soon, the Weissmann family was told that they would be sent to camps in order to make Bielitz Judenrein—free of Jews. Klein’s father and mother were taken to death camps, where they were killed, along with one to three million others. Poland was the center of the Jewish Holocaust, and Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Birkenau, the infamous concentration camps, were all located there. The survival rate for Jews living in Poland during the war was lower than in any other country. Poland’s Jewish population dropped from 3,500,000 to just 50,000 by the end of the war. At the same time that her parents were taken to Auschwitz, Klein and many other young Polish people were taken to labor camps, where they became slaves forced to work for the German war effort. As it became obvious that Germany was losing the war, the Germans started dismantling the camps and forcing the prisoners onto marches that became known as “death marches” because of their extremely high mortality rate. In the winter of 1945, more than four thousand young women were forced onto a three-hundred-mile “death march” from a number of labor camps in Germany and Poland to Czechoslovakia. Among them was Gerda Weissmann Klein—one of only 120 women in her group of 2,000 who survived this march. Klein and the other women were liberated by American troops—including one soldier who eventually became Klein’s husband in the spring of 1945. All But My Life is Klein’s memoir of the period from September 3, 1939, two days after the Nazi invasion of Poland, until September of 1945. In 1946, Klein moved to Buffalo, New York, with her husband, Kurt Klein, where she began working to raise awareness about the Holocaust, prevent hunger, and promote tolerance. She quickly formed ties with a number of Jewish groups and began lecturing about her experiences as a young woman during the Holocaust. First published in 1957, Klein’s story was the basis for the Academy Award-winning documentary One Survivor Remembers. Klein also went on to write a number of other books, including a collection of her correspondence with her then-fiancé, Kurt Klein, before their marriage in 1946. All But My Life is just one of many memoirs written in the decades immediately following the end of World War II. In 1995 the memoir was revised and re-released with an epilogue describing Klein’s post-war life. Plot Overview Gerda Weissmann Klein’s story begins on September 3, 1939, when she is fifteen. This day, she says, was the beginning of a tragedy that lasted six years. She is living in Bielitz, Poland, the town of her birth, and she reacts with horror as she watches her neighbors greet the invading Nazis with joy. The family had been trying to hide the possibility of war from Gerda’s father because he was ill and they didn’t want to upset him. Once their town is invaded, though, they can no longer keep it a secret from him. Sanctions start being imposed on the Jews, and Jewish men are being abducted by the Nazis. In October, Gerda’s brother, Arthur, is forced to leave in a Nazi transport with all of the other young men in town. Gerda never sees him again, although she receives letters from him throughout much of the war. The situation becomes more and more dire for the Jews, as their Aryan neighbors take advantage of the situation as much as they can, buying their possessions for a fraction of their worth and taking over the factories they own. The Weissmanns are forced to switch homes with their laundress, who has been living in their basement, and not long after, they are told they will soon be forced to move into a Jewish ghetto. Gerda travels with her childhood friend Ilse to visit a camp for young Jewish men and meets Abek Feigenblatt, who quickly falls in love with her, although his feelings are not reciprocated. Gerda thinks of Abek is a friend and nothing more. Gerda becomes increasingly aware of how truly horrifying the situation has gotten when she receives a letter from her friend Erika, telling her how her mother, baby brother, and boyfriend were forced to lie naked on the cobblestones of their town and were then trampled to death by Nazis on horseback. In 1942, the family is forced into a Jewish ghetto and ordered to work for the German war effort. However, it is not long before all the Jews are told they will be moved out of town so Bielitz can be Judenrein—free of Jews. Gerda is separated from her parents and never sees them again. Gerda goes to a transit camp in Sosnowitz, where Abek’s family makes sacrifices to try and get her freedom. However, she chooses to not go with them because she realizes that she will be so thoroughly in their debt that she will be forced to marry Abek, which she does not want to do. Gerda and Ilse are then transported to a labor camp that specializes in weaving, which they are forced to do for the German war effort. Gerda regularly receives loving letters from Abek while in the camp. In August of 1943, the girls are divided into groups and told they will be leaving the camp and taken to Märzdorf, another labor camp. Luckily, Gerda and Ilse are in the same group. Märzdorf is almost unbearable for Gerda once she refuses a supervisor’s advances and is punished by being forced to work both the day and night shifts. Ilse manages to save her by having them both transferred to a weaving camp in Landeshut. They discover that there is a men’s camp next door, reputed to be the worst camp in all of Germany. Gerda is shocked and guilt-ridden when she hears that Abek has voluntarily transferred there to be closer to her. On May 6, 1944, the girls find out that they are to be transferred again. Ilse and Gerda continue to mourn the loss of their families but still have hope for their own survival. The new camp, Grünberg, is brutal, but still not as bad as Märzdorf. In November, the girls are forced to strip naked and be visually inspected by the SS (stands for Schutzstaffel, the term for Hitler’s elite group of soldiers). They hear rumors that they may be sent to provide “amusement” for wounded German soldiers. Gerda manages to buy enough poison for both herself and Ilse so that they will be able to avoid this fate. As the war progresses and Germany begins to falter, the situation at the camp becomes worse and worse. In January 1945, they find out that Germany is being invaded by the Allies. Girls from other work camps arrive, increasing the camp population to over 4,000 young women. They are divided into two groups and told they will be marching to a concentration camp. Gerda says that her group was doomed—only 120 of them survived—but she expresses no regrets about being assigned to this group. They begin their march, and after only a few days, girls begin to die of starvation and cold. They march for weeks through bombed-out cities of Germany and, in March, finally arrive at another camp, Helmbrechts. The next month, however, they are forced to begin marching again, and they soon cross the Czechoslovakian border. Ilse grows weaker and weaker, and Gerda tries in vain to protect her. Ilse dies on the march, as do most of the other prisoners. One night, in a town called Volary, they are locked into a factory building and left there by the SS with a bomb outside. The bomb does not go off, however, and the Czech people unlock the doors, announcing that the war is over. The surviving girls are taken to a makeshift hospital by the Red Cross and American soldiers. One of these American soldiers is Kurt Klein, who continues to visit Gerda while she is in the hospital. Before he is forced to go back to America, he asks Gerda to come with him and be his wife. She says she knows she will never be alone again. Character List Gerda Weissmann Klein - The narrator of the memoir that covers six years of her life. The title All But My Life refers to what the Nazis took from Gerda, and the book covers the physical and psychological journey that begins when she is just fifteen years old—a journey that she barely survives. Throughout the ordeal, Gerda remains hopeful about both her family’s fate and her own, and she emphasizes the positive attributes of those around her. Gerda’s character is epitomized by her brave optimism and strength in the face of the Holocaust. Read an in-depth analysis of Gerda Weissmann Klein. Julius Weissmann - Gerda’s father, referred to as “Papa.” Despite his illness, Julius does not complain and does what little he can to make the lives of his family better. Although he lives only through Part One of the book, Gerda constantly thinks about him and prays for his survival. She believes that he is responsible for saving her life, first by insisting that she wear her skiing boots before she left on the transport and then by making her promise that she would not kill herself. Helene Weissmann - Gerda’s mother, known as “Mama.” Helene tries to make the best of her situation and is willing to sacrifice anything she can for her family. Helene was born in Bielitz, and although she is shocked by the invasion and the townspeople’s response, she is stoic about what is happening around her. She is separated from Gerda and the end of Part One, and although Gerda never sees her again, she reminisces about her constantly and remembers her in her prayers. Arthur Weissmann - Gerda’s older brother. Losing Arthur is one of Gerda’s greatest trials during the war. Witty and attractive, Arthur is a brave young man who urges Gerda to be strong for their parents. Although Arthur exists mainly in Gerda’s memories, he is still a driving force in her memoir. Ilse Kleinzähler - A childhood friend of Gerda’s from Bielitz. Together, Gerda and Ilse are forced into camps and onto a death march, where Ilse eventually dies. Ilse is a good friend to Gerda, sacrificing her food for her and putting herself at risk to help her. Ilse’s friendship is one of Gerda’s key motivators throughout their time in the camps and during the death march. Read an in-depth analysis of Ilse Kleinzähler. Abek Feigenblatt - A suitor of Gerda’s. Abek hopes that one day after the war, Gerda will marry him. He sacrifices much to be with her, despite the fact that her feelings are not reciprocated and that she regards him as more of an older brother figure than a boyfriend. Eventually, his hopes are crushed, and he loses his will to live while housed in the most horrific German labor camp. Read an in-depth analysis of Abek Feigenblatt. Kurt Klein - An American soldier who helps liberate Gerda and the other girls. His parents were victims of the Holocaust, so he is very empathetic to Gerda’s needs and seems to know instinctively what will make her feel better. His love and compassion are vital to her recovery from the horrors she experiences during the war. Read an in-depth analysis of Kurt Klein. Suse and Liesel - Two girls whom Gerda befriends in the camps and who end up on the death march with her. Together with Ilse, the four girls form a loving community of support for each other during their journey. Both Suse and Liesel die immediately after the march. Erika - A childhood friend of Gerda’s. It is her heartbreaking letter that brings the reality of the Holocaust home to Gerda. Erika’s love for her fiancé also helps Gerda explore her own feelings for Abek. Mrs. Berger - The Jewish woman in charge of the girls at Bolkenhain; a fellow prisoner at Landeshut. Although Mrs. Berger has many undesirable qualities, she also exhibits integrity and courage and makes the girls’ experiences at Bolkenhain more pleasant. Tusia - A giraffe-necked girl in the camps. Tusia shares the same birthday as Gerda. Her words, before she goes mad and dies, have a prophetic quality. Frau Kügler - A worker for the SS whose appearance resembles that of a bulldog. Frau Kügler still has sympathy for some Jews, as she demonstrates when she saves Gerda’s life by not allowing her to remain in the sickroom when the SS come to the camp for selections. Peter - A friend of Arthur’s who visits from Krakow, bearing good news about Arthur. He later confesses to Gerda that he made up the news to bring her parents some happiness, and Gerda decides to keep it a secret. Merin - A Jewish leader who works with the SS to help them liquidate his fellow Jews. He sends Gerda’s mother to her death, but despite her pleading, forces her to go with the other group, thus sparing her from Auschwitz. He is called “The King of the Jews.” Uncle Leo - Gerda’s mother’s brother, who lives in Turkey. Leo is one of Gerda’s only relatives to survive the Holocaust, and he helps her in any way he can throughout the war, sending her packages and ultimately inviting her to live with him at the end of the war. Aunt Anna - Gerda’s father’s sister. Anna has two children, Miriam and David. Her experiences are the first firsthand accounts that the Weissmanns hear about the horror of what is to come. After she moves to the interior of Poland to escape the Nazis, she is never heard from again. Mr. Pipersberg - Gerda’s father’s business partner and a family friend. Mr. Pipersberg urges Gerda to keep secret the fact that he was beaten for going to their factory once the Nazis have taken it over. He moves to the interior of Poland under an assumed identity and is never heard from again. Hanka - A girl in the camps who, on the death march, remains strong. She sneaks the girls extra food in the camps and protects them while on the march. Through her help, Gerda ultimately survives and doesn’t lose her precious skiing shoes. Niania Brenza - An old Austrian who speaks only German and remains loyal to the dead emperor, Franz Josef. Niania was Gerda and Arthur’s nanny and lived with the family for thirteen years. She continues to visit them, despite being warned not to by the Nazis. Gerda is annoyed by her easy security but still loves her dearly. Analysis of Major Characters Gerda Weissmann Klein Gerda’s maturation takes place gradually throughout All But My Life, under the shadow of the Nazi regime. At the beginning of her memoir, Gerda depicts herself as an innocent and naïve teenager. As she loses her family members one by one, she is forced to become entirely selfreliant, and only then does her resolute spirit truly become apparent. Most notable about Gerda is her ability to remain optimistic in the face of the Holocaust and despite everything, to focus on the positive aspects of her life. This optimism allows Gerda to make her memoir a tale of love and community set against the backdrop of the horrors of the Holocaust, rather than a tale that focuses on the cruelty that she has endured. Though Gerda encounters almost unbelievable evil during her life, she also witnesses many instances of kindness, though she never becomes sentimental when she describes them. She relates the events as they happen but leaves out a certain element of emotional complexity, which keeps us from getting to know her better. However, the distance that Gerda maintains offers an insight into her character as well. Her inability to attach emotional resonance to the events that she witnesses shows just how damaged she is by the events of the Holocaust. Her insistence on paying homage to the goodness of her peers in the camps epitomizes her belief that bearing witness to what happened is more important than merely telling her own story, and this belief illustrates her unselfish character. Gerda’s personality is typified by her steadfast hope, brave optimism, and willingness to help her comrades despite personal risk. Ilse Kleinzähler Ilse, one of Gerda’s childhood friends, eventually becomes Gerda’s only family. Ilse is a talented musician who plays the piano with emotional intensity and gives herself entirely to her music. Although Ilse is more timid than Gerda, she is intensely brave in her own way and is willing to sacrifice much to assist her friend. She is not envious of Gerda’s good fortune when Gerda is given the opportunity to leave the transit camp to be with Abek’s family; rather, she is genuinely happy for Gerda. They hold hands constantly throughout the memoir, both to give each other strength and to demonstrate their unbreakable friendship. They are even holding hands when Ilse dies during the last week of the death march. Perhaps because Gerda wrote her memoir after Ilse’s death, she attributes a sort of otherworldly goodness to Ilse and credits her with saving her life many times. She attaches great significance to the time that Ilse found a slightly crushed raspberry and carried it all day to give it as a gift to Gerda that night. This moment—when Ilse’s only possession in the world is nothing more than a bruised raspberry, yet she chooses to give it to her friend—provides an intimate view of Ilse’s character. Not only is she kind and sweet, but she is self-sacrificing and willing to do anything she can to help Gerda. Even on her deathbed, she expresses concern for her friends and her family, forcing Gerda to promise to live to see the end of the war, and asking that Gerda spare Ilse’s parents the pain of hearing that Ilse died as she did. Her character is that of an admirable martyr without whom Gerda would have probably not survived the war. Abek Feigenblatt Abek is an intense and passionate young man who falls in love with Gerda at first sight and continues to love her despite her constant rejections. He is a Jewish Hebrew scholar and has a superior air about him when he speaks to people. He is intelligent and has sound judgment, and even Gerda’s father respects him. Abek is convinced that Gerda’s love is all he needs in order to maintain the courage required to get through the war. He is determined and forceful, yet Gerda sees his neediness toward her as a sign of weakness. She feels that were he more forceful, perhaps he could be the man she is searching for, but his weakness disillusions her. In Gerda’s life, Abek takes the role of an older brother, although he would prefer to be her lover. His love for her is intense—he forces his family to help Gerda, at great personal sacrifice, and he truly believes that one day he will be able to change her feelings toward him. Abek writes to Gerda faithfully, even when he receives no response, and eventually he voluntarily transfers to the worst camp in Germany to be closer to her. Though Abek initially functions as an older brother in Gerda’s life, he eventually becomes the focus of the guilt she feels when she recognizes that he has made his life nearly unbearable in order to be closer to her. Only when he truly realizes that Gerda does not love him does he give up hope completely and begin to lose the desire to live. Kurt Klein Kurt is an American soldier who helps liberate the remaining girls from the death march, and Gerda believes that he is her soul mate. Kurt was born in Germany, and he moved to the United States a year after Hitler came to power, leaving his parents behind. His parents were put in a camp, and his letters to them were marked “Undeliverable.” The suffering and guilt he feels regarding his parents’ fate allow him to understand Gerda’s feelings, and this helps the two connect more deeply. Intuitively, Kurt understands what Gerda feels and needs, and his instinctual understanding of her makes Gerda believe that they are truly destined to be together. While she is in the hospital, he does not bring her clothes and food, though she needs them, because he wants her to feel that this is a normal courtship and that he does not see her as victim. Although Gerda doesn’t explore his character very thoroughly in her memoir, his deep and abiding love for Gerda, and hers for him, is clear. Themes, Motifs, and Symbols Themes The Sustaining Power of Hope Despite all she endures, Gerda never loses hope that her life will improve and that her suffering has some greater meaning. Gerda is not strongly religious, but she has faith in humanity, nature, and the belief that no matter what happens, something good can come from it. When Gerda writes about being in the group sent on the death march from Grünberg, of which only 120 out of the 2,000 in her part of the group survived, she says of another group that was liberated earlier, “Had I been part of it my fate would have been different. Less suffering, yes, but less happiness, too, I am sure.” Gerda clearly believes that the pain and hardship in her life have been more than offset by the happiness she has experienced. From her perspective, the war took her family, but it brought her a new family as well: because of the war and the Holocaust, she met the man who became her loving husband and the father of her children. The idea that one must persevere through pain in order to experience joy has helped Gerda come to terms with her experiences. The Importance of Bearing Witness In the epilogue, Gerda writes that she hopes her lifelong efforts to raise awareness about the Holocaust have given back some small part of what she has received. One way she does this is by bearing witness to the life and death of those who have no other voice. Gerda strives to provide as much first-hand information as she possibly can about her fellow prisoners. In the section describing her time in Bolkenhain, she describes what happens to a fellow prisoner, Lotte, saying, “I cannot help but want to tell her story, for I might be the only one left in the world who knows it.” Gerda believes her duty is to be as detailed as possible when she writes about the others in her camp. Just as she does not know what her family’s last days or weeks were like, she recognizes that most Holocaust victims died in obscurity, and she uses her memoir to try to right that wrong. In many instances, she includes people’s full names and their fates, even if they are such minor characters that they are mentioned in only one or two sentences. For Gerda, telling the stories of others who died is just as important as telling her own story, and she does so in a way that is both respectful and deeply moving. Morality Is a Choice No matter what their circumstances or situation, people have free will, and they always have the option to act with morality and humanity. Gerda illustrates this theme by writing about people who behave in unexpected ways, such as the decision by Frau Kügler, who works for the SS, to save Gerda’s life. By giving examples of people who, while working for the Nazis, nevertheless behaved with humanity, Gerda illustrates that it was not impossible for Germans during the Nazi era to act decently toward Jews, forcing the reader to question why it was only these few specific people who chose to behave humanely. By pointing out that some people chose to show compassion, she makes the parallel point that those who behaved cruelly were making a choice as well. She also gives numerous examples of girls who helped one another in the camps, at great personal risk to themselves. Even under the harshest conditions, whether working for the Nazis or imprisoned in a slave labor camp, people are not entirely powerless or entirely unable to make a moral choice. Some become monsters, and some choose to treat others as fellow human beings and thereby reaffirm their own humanity. Motifs The Beauty of Nature Despite the horrors that the Nazis perpetrate on the Jews, Gerda is quick to point out that there is still beauty in the world, although perhaps it exists only in nature. When the Germans first invade Bielitz, Gerda is brought to tears when her neighbor picks Gerda’s mother’s white roses to give to the Nazis. He drops them, however, and she watches as the soldiers’ boots trample the roses in the dust. She points out the incongruousness of the Nazis’ depraved behavior when set against the backdrop of the glorious natural world. Gerda describes the Grünberg labor camp as “cruelty set against a backdrop of beauty.” Her surprise at seeing a camp lined with tulips in full bloom yet filled with skeletal girls underscores the horror of the scene. During the death march, a few girls stop and are unable to go on. Gerda looks around and admires the beauty of the snowy pine trees while she hears the gunshots as the girls are executed. She cannot understand how a world that is so full of beauty can also be inhabited by people who are so heartless. Home Throughout All But My Life, Gerda lovingly describes her childhood home. The day before she is moved to the ghetto, Gerda takes a serious risk, saying, “I did not care whether I was caught or not, I had to see my beloved home once more!” In the camps, Gerda often thinks of her parents and brother, always set against the backdrop of her home as it was before they were forced to sell their belongings and move out. She uses fantasies of returning home and meeting her family to help her get through the horrors of her days in the camps, and her longing for home sometimes comes close to overwhelming her while she is on the death march. The feeling of security she gets from picturing her childhood home does not diminish until she is liberated. Only then does she slowly start to realize that her home no longer exists in the way she remembers it. In her epilogue, however, Gerda recalls her first steps on American soil, with Kurt, her husband, embracing her and saying, “You have come home.” Only then does Gerda realize that home is not a physical place but, rather, a set of feelings that has survived the destruction of the war and will live on through her new family. Chance Rather than portraying her survival as the result of her own cunning or of divine intervention, Gerda is quick to note the many times that sheer luck determined whether she would live to see the end of the war. Gerda’s brushes with death are too numerous to count, and only because of a series of close calls and coincidences does she avoid being exterminated with the rest of her family. The police officer who lets her go when she is caught studying English, her father’s insistence that she wear her ski boots before she leaves their home, Merin’s forcing her onto the truck to the camps instead of to Auschwitz, and Ilse’s backing out of their escape plan at the last minute are all examples of the role that chance plays in her eventual survival. By accentuating these moments, Gerda makes clear that she does not believe herself to be superior to those who did not live. Rather, she portrays the wartime world as a terrifying place where matters of life and death are again and again determined completely by chance. Kindness The Holocaust is one of the most dramatic instances of people behaving inhumanely and treating others with hideous cruelty, yet Gerda chooses to focus on the deep friendships she develops during the war and the acts of generosity she witnesses. Other Holocaust memoirs, such as Night by Elie Wiesel, detail not only the brutality of the Nazis but also the cruelty of the Jews toward one another as they are forced to struggle for their own survival. In contrast, Gerda in almost every case shows the acts of kindness among her peers in the camps and tries to act as charitably as they do. Despite the fact that she and her fellow prisoners are near starvation, Gerda gives her food away many times and, when she is weak, is given food by Ilse and Hanka. Much like Anne Frank, the author of the Holocaust memoir Diary of a Young Girl , Gerda is inspired by the horrors of the war to be more generous and kind rather than less so. Symbols Flowers Gerda mentions flowers dozens of times in her memoir: roses, buttercups, daisies, lilacs, tulips, and violets. These references often point to the beauty of nature and the goodness of which the world is capable. Flowers are also important symbols for the memories of home that sustain her during her ordeal. When Kurt brings Gerda lilies-of-the-valley early in their courtship, he brings her to tears by reminding her of her childhood garden. To keep hope alive during her time in the camps, she often recalls images of flowers. She uses the beauty of these images to underscore all that she has lost in the war and to remind herself that, despite what she has endured, the world is still capable of producing beauty and inspiring hope. Shoes In the world of the Holocaust, shoes represent the difference between life and death. Many times in her memoir, Gerda says she believes that the fact that her father insisted she wear her skiing shoes before she left for the camps saved her life. She sleeps curled around her shoes on the death march, to protect them from the shoeless girls who would otherwise steal them during the night, for those who are properly shod have the best chance of surviving. She writes of seeing a girl break off her own toes after they become thoroughly frozen, and of other girls who leave bloody trails in the snow when they walk. Gerda keeps poison in her shoe as well, to be used as a last resort. Her shoes not only have the power to assure her survival—they also contain the means of her death, if she so chooses. Important Quotations Explained 1. He looked steadily at me and then answered my thoughts. “Whatever you are thinking now is wrong. It is cowardly.” I couldn’t deny it. He lifted my chin up and looked at me firmly again. “Promise me that no matter what happens you will never do it.” In Part One, Chapter 5, when Gerda finishes selling the family’s possessions to the neighbors to finalize their move to the ghetto, she recalls hearing of a family that committed suicide together. She half-heartedly wishes that her parents would suggest this. As she is considering the idea, her father walks into the room and forces her to promise to never do it—though neither he nor Gerda specify out loud what “it” is. This scene is the first of two major events during which Gerda’s father gives the impression of omniscience—he knows what she is thinking without her saying a word, and he knows what is best for her. The second instance of her father’s wisdom is when he insists that she wear her ski boots despite the fact that it is summer—a request that ultimately saves her life. Throughout the book, Gerda gives the impression of her father’s impotence in the face of the Nazis—he cannot save his family or stop what is happening to them. However, this scene makes clear that no matter what the Nazis’ power, Gerda’s father still has the power to save her through small acts such as this one. Once Gerda is sent to the labor camps, she remembers the promise she made to her father, and it motivates her to go on. In the Märzdorf labor camp, where Gerda is working both the day and night shifts, she considers jumping onto the railroad tracks. At that moment, she gets a feeling in her neck that reminds her of how her father had held her head while making her promise to never give up. At that moment, when death seems like the only solution, the memory of this conversation, and of her father’s love for her, gives Gerda the courage to stay alive. 2. “I hope you will never be disillusioned. To you, life still means beauty, and that is how it should be. Continue to go through mud without dirtying your feet.” She spoke without explanation or introduction and without finishing, and then she stalked away towards our quarters. In Part Two, Chapter 5, Tusia says this to Gerda while they are in Bolkenhain together. Tusia’s words in the book have a prophetic tone, particularly when she gives a similarly worded outburst in a fit of madness immediately before her death at Helmbrechts. Despite Tusia’s apparent lunacy, her words are largely accurate. The idea that cruelty can breed cruelty is reflected in Gerda’s descriptions of the girls in the camp who steal one another’s shoes, and the girl who betrays her fellow inmates by having an affair with an SS guard. However, these are behaviors that Gerda would never exhibit, and her reaction to the brutality she is forced to endure provokes quite the opposite reaction in her. If anything, Gerda becomes more dedicated to remaining kind and generous. The Nazis may destroy her body, but she refuses to let them consume her soul. The slave labor camps and the death march are the mud that Gerda is going through, both literally and figuratively, yet despite the hunger and deprivation that she must suffer in order to survive, she continues to treat her peers with respect and dignity, thus not “dirtying her feet.” Although Gerda recognizes the viciousness that is possible in humankind and that which she sees in the Nazis, she also stops to notice the beauty that exists in nature and in the hearts of the other girls in the camps. Her memoir focuses more on the friendships that she manages to develop in the camps than on the harsh treatment that the girls endure. Although the title of Gerda’s book, All But My Life, describes what the Nazis have taken from her, she also succeeds at holding onto her own humanity, no matter what the circumstances. 3. My eyes remained dry. I felt my features turn stony. “Now I have to live,” I said to myself, “because I am alone and nothing can hurt me any more.” Gerda’s thoughts, which appear in the first chapter of Part Two immediately after she has been separated from her mother, are paradoxical, for she implies that to lose everything is a kind of liberation. The natural reaction to losing all of one’s family members might tend toward becoming more self-destructive, but Gerda takes the opposite view. Thanks to Gerda’s unique optimistic viewpoint, even her most morbid thoughts, such as this one, reflect her positive perspective. Gerda finds that losing her family prompts her to go on living. She sees this loss as a new kind of freedom: now she doesn’t have to worry about her parents’ welfare or being forced to make the “right” decisions, and she can put her own desires before her duty to her parents, which feels like a reprieve from responsibility. Knowing that her only duty is to look out for her own survival allows her the discretion to express the feelings, such as rage she shows here, that she has kept inside for fear of upsetting her parents. The idea that all suffering comes from attachment is reflected in Gerda’s thoughts: she believes that now that her family has been taken from her, she can no longer be hurt. However, this conclusion is much like her mother’s belief that once the Nazis took their house they were safe, because that was the worst injustice they could place upon them. Obviously, this is a miscalculation on both of their parts, for the Nazis continue to prove that they can always commit worse injustices. In a sense, though, the freedom Gerda now feels is very real. The loss of responsibility to her parents allows her the audaciousness to behave in ways that she would not have considered before, such as barging into the commander’s office at Sosnowitz, which ultimately benefits her. 4. There is a watch lying on the green carpet of the living room of my childhood. The hands seem to stand motionless at 9:10, freezing time when it happened. The first lines of All But My Life reflect Gerda’s belief that the Nazis stole her childhood, and that, in a way, time stopped for her when her town was invaded. Many times throughout the book, Gerda writes about feeling that her childhood ended when the Nazis first came to Bielitz, and that at that moment her life changed dramatically. From the first days of the invasion, the burden of responsibility in her family was placed on her shoulders. Jewish adults who freely walked the streets were often abducted or assaulted, so Gerda is the only member of her family who can come and go from their house unchallenged, forcing her to assume responsibility for many important decisions. Her role with her parents switches after the invasion, for she becomes the caregiver in many respects, causing her to feel that she must behave as an adult at all costs. The idea that time stops for Gerda when the invasion occurs is a notion that she visits again in her epilogue. She says she experienced a break in her social development because she was not allowed to participate in ordinary adolescent activities during the six years of war. Her normal emotional growth was slowed. Although she had more horrifying experiences in her teenage years than most people see in a lifetime, she also had a huge gap in her social development. In a sense, time did stop for Gerda when the war started, for after she was liberated she was still a girl of fifteen in many respects. She writes that, at the age of twenty-one, she was afraid that Kurt would attempt to kiss her, much as she feared Abek’s romantic attempts as a teenager. 5. I had reached the summit, as I had dreamed I would in the dark years of slavery, and there, beyond the sphere of human vision, we met and embraced. We would never be alone again. The last lines of the memoir summarize Gerda’s feelings about life and love. She believes that no matter what happens in a person’s life, there is no pain or suffering that love cannot heal. While she does not believe she will be rewarded in life just because she has suffered, she recognizes that in order to reap the rewards of a wonderful life, one must be willing to endure the pain of that life as well. Gerda has endured the suffering of the Holocaust (which she terms “the dark years of slavery”), and she now sees her love for Kurt as her reward. She believes that they are not merely engaged to be married, but that they are soul mates who connect on a level beyond what we as humans can understand—perhaps even in a place where only God makes the decisions. The idea that a power greater than either Kurt or Gerda brought them together is implied when Gerda says that they met beyond the sphere of human vision. This idea comforts Gerda, who has been through so much in the preceding years. For a woman like Gerda, who has lost her entire family and seen how readily a person can lose everything in life, the idea that now she and Kurt will never have to be alone again is radical. Gerda knows all too well how easy it is to lose someone you love—love in itself does not protect against that loss. However, Gerda feels that her relationship with Kurt is not merely physical, but spiritual as well. Although their bodies may be taken, their souls cannot be captured, and in that sense, Gerda and Kurt will remain together forever. Key Facts full title · All But My Life: A Memoir author · Gerda Weissmann Klein type of work · Memoir genre · Memoir, historical nonfiction language · English time and place written · New York, date unknown; the epilogue was written in Arizona in 1994. date of first publication · 1957 publisher · Hill & Wang narrator · Gerda Weissmann Klein point of view · Gerda writes in the first person, relating the events that she sees from her own point of view. tone · Although Gerda writes about the Holocaust after it has taken place, her tone still conveys the sense of shock and horror she felt at the time. Overall, though, she maintains a sense of optimism and highlights the positive experiences she has during that time. tense · Past setting (time) · 1939–1945, during World War II. The epilogue contains information about the author’s post-war life through 1995. setting (place) · Gerda’s story beings in her hometown of Bielitz, Poland, and follows her to a series of labor camps, including Bolkenhain, Grünberg, Märzdorf, and Landeshut, which were located in Poland (and controlled by Germany during this time), and culminates in a threehundred–mile death march that ends in Volary, Czechoslovakia. protagonist · Gerda major conflict · Gerda struggles to survive in the face of Nazi persecution and to remain loyal to her friends, despite losing her family. rising action · Gerda first loses her parents and then is sent to a series of slave labor camps. climax · Gerda and her friends are forced onto a three-hundred–mile “death march” to Czechoslovakia. falling action · Gerda is liberated by American troops, one of whom, Kurt Klein, will eventually become her husband. themes · The sustaining power of hope; the importance of bearing witness; morality is a choice motifs · The beauty of nature; home; chance; kindness symbols · Flowers; shoes foreshadowing · Gerda does not use foreshadowing in the traditional sense by hinting at events to come. Rather, she often relates a person’s fate as he or she is introduced to us. How to Cite This SparkNote Full Bibliographic Citation MLA SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on All But My Life.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2006. Web. 1 Aug. 2013. The Chicago Manual of Style SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on All But My Life.” SparkNotes LLC. 2006. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/allbutmylife/ (accessed August 1, 2013). APA SparkNotes Editors. (2006). SparkNote on All But My Life. Retrieved August 1, 2013, from http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/allbutmylife/ In Text Citation MLA “Their conversation is awkward, especially when she mentions Wickham, a subject Darcy clearly wishes to avoid” (SparkNotes Editors). APA “Their conversation is awkward, especially when she mentions Wickham, a subject Darcy clearly wishes to avoid” (SparkNotes Editors, 2006). Footnote The Chicago Manual of Style Chicago requires the use of footnotes, rather than parenthetical citations, in conjunction with a list of works cited when dealing with literature. 1 SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on All But My Life.” SparkNotes LLC. 2006. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/allbutmylife/ (accessed August 1, 2013). Please be sure to cite your sources. For more information about what plagiarism is and how to avoid it, please read our article on The Plagiarism Plague. If you have any questions regarding how to use or include references to SparkNotes in your work, please tell us. Table of Contents in-depth analysis of Gerda Weissmann Klein. in-depth analysis of Ilse Kleinzähler. in-depth analysis of Abek Feigenblatt. in-depth analysis of Kurt Klein.