Quotes from Gerda Weissmann Klein

Ilse, a childhood friend of mine, once found a raspberry in the concentration camp and carried it in her pocket all day to present to me that night on a leaf. Imagine a world in which your entire possession is one raspberry and you give it to your friend.

I had created a happy world of make-believe around me during the long years of loneliness, a world of beauty and love. It had helped me to survive, this lovely world that was to be mine when the war was over.

He said I could make him happy. Then I understood the cause of my sadness. I didn't want to make anybody happy. I wanted someone to make me happy. I knew that there was laughter and I wanted someone who could laugh with me.

Survival is both an exalted privilege and a painful burden.

My experience has taught me that all of us have a reservoir of untapped strength that comes to the fore at moments of crisis.

My mind was so dull, my nerves so worn from waiting, that only an emotionless vacuum remained.

My thoughts and emotions center on him: there has never been a you and me, but always we and us.

That makes it more difficult to speak of the past, because the memories are apt to turn into the living present.

They faced what the morning would bring with the only weapon they had–their love for each other. Love is great, love is the foundation of nobility, it conquers obstacles and is a deep well of truth and strength.

I quickly get interested in people but just as quickly avoid them when they expect to be my only friends. I ams ure i hurt many people in that way.

It was always uncertainty that i feared most.

Imagine a world, in which your entire possession is one raspberry, and you give it to your friend.

We had all assembled. Why? Why did we walk like meek sheep to the slaughterhouse? Why did we not fight back? What had we to lose? Nothing but our lives. Why did we not run away and hide? We might have had a chance to survive. Why did we walk deliberately and obediently into their clutches? I know why. Because we had faith in humanity. Because we did not really think that human beings were capable of committing such crimes.

Not fair to light a spark of hope, to see a grim mouth smile?

You are going through mud but your feet are still clean.

I fell in love with this country from the moment I first stepped upon its soil. It felt so right, so expansive, so free, so hospitable, and I desperately wanted to become part of the American mainstream.

Throughout my years in the camps, and against nearly insuperable odds, I knew of no one who committed suicide. I wanted to reach out to young people, make them aware of the preciousness of life, and show them that it was not to be thrown away thoughtlessly, even under conditions of extreme hardship. I always wanted to impress upon them how wrong it is to seek a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

There were no golden trumpets to proclaim our freedom. There were no liberators in sight.

Then she sighed, released his hand and , looking at him, shook her head and whispered, Too late.

Throughout my years in the camps, and against nearly insuperable odds, I knew of no one who committed suicide. I wanted to reach out to young people, make them aware of the preciousness of life, and show them that it was not to be thrown away thoughtlessly, even under conditions of extreme hardship.

The pictures of her parents and brother that the author carried in her shoe during the years she was in the hands of the Nazis. Lt. Kurt Klein in 1945.

HBO working on the documentary about my experiences, One Survivor Remembers, went to Germany to film at locations where I had

These thoughts were a wonderful escape from the present. Comfortingly, the past was unwinding before me, my wonderful childhood, safe and sheltered, too sheltered perhaps for what the years ahead were to bring, but full of lovely memories from which to draw strength.

I learned from my experience is that each of us has an enormous reservoir of strength to draw upon when needed.