Gerda Weissmann Klein, who as a teen survived the Holocaust before becoming an author, activist, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient and subject of a 1995 Oscar-and-Emmy winning film, died yesterday according to that film’s director, Kary Antholis.
She was 97.Born in 1924, Weissmann Klein was sent to Nazi forced-labor camps after the Germans occupied her native Poland. Shuffled through three different camps, she almost died from overwork.
As Allied troops advanced, Weissmann Klein was one of 4,000 women sent on a forced death march away from liberation. The group marched through Poland, Germany and what is now the Czech Republic.
While she survived the war, both of her parents and her brother died during the Holocaust.Weissmann Klein was eventually liberated by American forces.
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