Life Is Gerda Weissmann\'s Account

¶ … life is Gerda Weissmann's account of her holocaust tyranny during WWII. When Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, Gerda was still a young girl whose life changed dramatically and drastically with that event. During the six years that she spent in Nazi camps, Gerda underwent major traumatic experiences especially as a salve laborer for three years that left an indelible mark on her psyche. The account of her chilling experience on Death March which lasted three months exposes the Holocaust severity in its most raw form. Out of the four thousand girls who were forced to take part in that march, only 120 survived till the end and that in it shows how extremely brutal were the conditions under which Jewish prisoners were kept during Nazi occupation.

What I loved about the book was the sheer innocence of a fifteen-year-old that has been forced to endure massive brutality. She is scared, frightened for her life but at the same time fails to understand why is all this happening to her. Her inability to comprehend the situation shows her innocence and her vulnerability as a young girl undergoing life-changing experiences.

The book has not been as famous as the Dairy of Anne Frank but it is just as genuine and poignant in its account of a young girl's horrifying experiences during imprisonment. During the six years that she was imprisoned, Gerda had this deep faith in her heart that she would be liberated and reunited with her family. The story while sometimes disturbingly raw is still highly uplifting. Gerda's attitude towards life and her future makes it worth reading because it gives reader a glimpse of true faith in God's ability to protect His people and save them from even the most traumatic experiences of life. To keep herself positive, Gerda writes and performs plays with other inmates. One play especially gives her renewed hope in the possibility of liberation and she describes the experience as "greatest thing I have done in my life" (p. 142)?

Her meeting with Kurt Klein, a young American GI, was probably the most uplifting part of the book. The faith that had sustained her throughout the terrible ordeal was justified when she met this young man and fell in love. Soon after her liberation in 1945, she got married to Kurt and proved to the world that despite brutality and violence, it is faith and love that keep the world going on. It was definitely one of the most well written accounts of holocaust even though most people would find Diary of Anne Frank more emotionally stirring. The reason being that we all know that Anne Frank did not have the good luck of Gerda and thus while she was also full of hope; she sadly couldn't survive the holocaust and died at a very young age while still hoping of a better future.

Gerda on the other hand was the lucky one. She not only managed to find her freedom but also got married and lived a happy and peaceful life. But she was unable to free herself completely of the burden of her painful past as she writes in the book, "Survival is both an exalted privilege and a painful burden" (p. 247)