The correspondence of Alice and Ludwig Klein from Walldorf/Baden is an exemplary reminder of the fate of many Jewish families in the region.
Their children had managed to emigrate to the United States in the early years of the Nazi regime and tried to facilitate the emigration of their parents from there. Their increasingly desperate efforts are documented in this collection.
Alice and Ludwig Klein were deported to Gurs (France) in 1940 and murdered two years later in Auschwitz. The fate of the Klein family is representative of the transatlantic history of the Holocaust.

The digitization of the Klein letters is part of a larger project of the Heidelberg Center for American Studies at the University of Heidelberg in cooperation with regionalhistorical initiatives. This project also explores the life story of Gerda Weissmann Klein, who, together with her husband Kurt Klein, figured prominently in U.S. Holocaust education.

Kurt Klein - A life story
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Kurt Klein describes some of the difficulties involved in emigrating from Germany
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Gerda Weissmann’s account of surviving the Holocaust