Beyond FORTITUDE: Gerda Weissmann Klein

Tolerance.org highlights Gerda Weissmann Klein, who will speak at the United Nations during this Friday’s Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremonies. Holocaust Remembrance Day marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Klein, a Holocaust survivor, is the subject of the Oscar-winning 1995 documentary One Survivor Remembers. At age 15, Klein began a six-year ordeal that included three years in Nazi slave-labor camps and a 350-mile death march. She lost her entire family to the Holocaust, except one uncle who lived in Turkey.

Now at age 81, Klein travels tirelessly across the country to teach teens about the dangers of hate and extremism, celebrate the power of all that is good and humane, and encourage young people to take action against contemporary forms of intolerance. Tolerance.org offers a free teaching kit for grades 8-12 based on Klein’s empowering life story.