Steve Piltch, Shipley Head of School, introduced Klein to the gathering of students and faculty:

“But for all their tragedy, Gerda Klein’s stories were and are, about hope, about small kindnesses and small pleasures. They are about honor and friendship and about caring for others. They are about heroism—small acts carried out by ordinary people in ordinary ways in defiance of the horrors around them. During those long years from September of 1939, when the Germans marched into her hometown in Poland, until May of 1945, when she was liberated from a death march, Gerda Klein’s very survival was a large act of heroism made up of small honorable choices, small acts of caring, small fragments of hope.”

For more information about Gerda Klein and the foundation she created with her husband please go to the www.kleinfoundation.org .