Teen Ink

Imagine this: one morning you awake in your cozy suburban home to the loud sounds of destruction from outside. You look to see that tanks are destroying everything in their path and soldiers are taking your neighbors from their homes. You hear a knock at your door and realize that you are next. You are separated from your family and put in the back of a truck with people you don’t know. You are on your way to a camp – not the campground where you and your family go in the summer but a place where you will be locked up and may soon be added to a mass grave.

It’s hard to imagine this, but to actually experience it is something most of us can’t even begin to contemplate. But someone did live through this horrible scenario; her name is Gerda Weissman Klein.

Gerda was only a teenager during the Holocaust, when she lost her home, her friends and even worse, her family. After many years of torture, Gerda was finally rescued. Now you can read her excellent best-selling book, All But My Life, a real-life story of her six years in the concentration camps and liberation by American troops, one of whom later becomes her husband. You won’t be able to set this book down once you start reading.