"All But My Life" by Gerda Weissmann Klein is a memoir of her experiences during the holocaust. In great detail, she describes the six year period of Nazi tyranny, three of which she spent in slave labor camps. I liked the book. It was very informative, Gerda's strength of character was incredible, but the detail given was rather inconsistent.

I learned a lot from reading this book. I learned a handful of German words. There were a lot of details about Germany's invasion and the rest of the war that I did not know before. I never knew there was a part of Poland that Germany did not take over. "The part of Poland not officially incorporated into Greater Germany was commonly referred to as the Government (Klein 28)." I was also unaware of how fast Germany's invasion took place. "It took eighteen days, eighteen short days, to conquer Poland (Klein 11)." Before reading this book, I didn't know much about the camps the Germans housed Jews in. Of course I was aware of concentration camps like Auschwitz, but I knew nothing of the labor camps that Klein describes in her book. The first labor camp she is shipped to is "Bolkenhain" (Klein 113), a textile mill. She is later sent to "Märzdorf" (Klein 145), a factory of no given purpose, with horrible conditions. The last camp Gerda labored at was "Grünburg" (Klein 167), another textile plant, with conditions worse than before.

Gerda's strong spirit, strength, and will to live kept this book from being a completely miserable read. In spite of hideous circumstances, Gerda never loses hope. After Author leaves, she manages to maintain composure and take care of her parents. Later when she is in Bolkenhain, she manages to spread happiness and inspire hope by organizing plays and other performances (Klein 140). While in Märzdorf, her will to live overcomes immense discomfort and she resists the temptation to commit suicide. Even during the death march (Klein 185-210), Gerda maintains hope and encourages her friend Ilse to go on. In the end, her boots and her soul save her life.

My only complaint about "All But My Life" is the drastic inconsistency of detail. While Klein spends pages extravagantly describing some things, others are left with insufficient explanation. In the beginning of the book, Klein spends a few pages on a vacation she took prior to the war. While this may be interesting, it had no bearing on the story. Soon after this, we are introduced to Abek (Klein 54). He is a very important character in the story, but we never learn much about him. All we can say with certainty is that he paints and loves Gerda deeply. We do learn a bit about his family, he has nine older siblings (Klein 59). Comparatively, we learn a lot about Erika in the first page that she is mentioned (Klein 65). Erika is another friend of Gerda who doesn't play much part in the story. Near the end of part two, Gerda gives an account of the death march. While a few chapters are devoted to it, I,m not sure the author did an adequate job of how bad off they were. After Gerda is liberated, we find that she weighs only 65 pounds. I was shocked to read this. Perhaps it was poor comprehension on my part, but that point shouldn't have been so surprising.

Overall, I really like the book and would recommend it to anyone interested in history, the holocaust in particular. The book was well written, and the authors detail made the story quite believable. While it wasn't the most enjoyable read, Gerda's courage and strength prevent the book from being a miserable experience. "All But My Life" tells a story that needs to be told, because those that do not remember history are condemned to repeat it.