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After years of speaking on horrors of war, Valley woman, Holocaust survivor dies at 97

She spent most of her later years speaking at college campuses across the country about the horrors of war and what we can learn from it.

PHOENIX — Holocaust survivor Gerda Weissmann Klein, who called the Valley home, was laid to rest on Wednesday; she was 97 years old. 

She documented her harrowing story of survival in a critically-acclaimed autobiography titled, "All But My Life," which was adapted into a film that won an Academy Award in 1995. 

Weissmann Klein was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 

She spent most of her later years speaking at college campuses across the country about the horrors of war and what we can learn from it. 

“She made everyone feel like the most important person in the room," Weissmann Klein's granddaughter, Alysa Ullman Cooper, told 12 News. "She spoke to them many of them shared their own personal struggles with her …and I just think that legacy of giving hope and inspiration to people regardless of where they are in their own personal journey… I believe that was the driving force in her life."

Weissmann Klein is survived by her three children and 18 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. 

“As small as a person as she was, she was a giant … I call her a rockstar among survivors," said Jeffery Schensnol, associate director of the Jewish Heritage Center. 

Schensnol had spent time with Weissmann Klein and said she was always humble no matter the achievements she achieved. 

“She’s an Emmy award winner, an Academy Award winner, a Presidential Medal of Freedom winner, awarded by President Obama," he said. "None of that went to her head, she was always grateful that she had been saved.

“When she spoke, people listened because what she had to say was profound," Schensnol added. "She told a story of when she was in the camp, she had a blueberry, a single blueberry and that’s all she had to eat for the day. Then she met a woman that hadn’t eaten for days…and she gave that woman that blueberry… that’s what kind of person Gerda is."

>> Learn more about Gerda Weissmann Klein's extraordinary life at the Cutler Plotkin Jewish Heritage Center in downtown Phoenix. 

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