Gerda Weissmann Klein, who as a teenager survived the Holocaust before becoming an author, activist, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, and subject of a 1995 Oscar- and Emmy-winning film, died April 6. She was 97. 

When the Nazis occupied her native Poland, she was shuffled through three concentration camps, and was one of 4,000 women sent on a forced death march through Poland, Germany and what is now the Czech Republic. She survived the war; her parents and brother died.

Her autobiography, All But My Life, was made into an HBO documentary short, “One Survivor Remembers,” which won an Emmy and an Oscar.

In 1997, President Bill Clinton appointed Weissman-Klein to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s governing council. She was also selected as the keynote speaker at the United Nation’s first annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2006.

In 2008, she and her granddaughter, Alysa Cooper, founded a national nonprofit to educate students on the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. The work continues. 

And in 2011, President Barack Obama chose Weissman-Klein to receive the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. On that day, she said, “I pray you never stand at any crossroads in your own lives, but if you do, if the darkness seems so total, if you think there is no way out, remember, never ever give up.”