Emery Klein
"Be proud of your Jewishness and be a part of the Community. We cannot survive unless we band together and help each other and help Israel. I have been active in the Jewish Federation of metropolitan Detroit because I feel I owe it to pay back to the community. Federation takes care of local people and the Jewish people in Israel and all over the world. I have been the chair of Federation’s Annual Campaign and I have been very involved helping Yad Ezra, which provides... (continued below)"
Name at birth
Imre Klein
Date of birth
01/15/1928
Where were you born?
Where did you grow up?
Humenne, Czechoslovakia.
Name of father, occupation
Ervin,
Businessman.
Maiden name of mother, occupation
Helen Sommer,
Homemaker.
Immediate family (names, birth order)
Parents, me, Bernard and Judith.
How many in entire extended family?
60
Who survived the Holocaust?
Father, Bernard and me.
My father managed land, important to the Nazis. He was able to avoid being rounded up. In 1944 however, the family was sent to Nitra, Slovakia with others, and we were put on a cattle train to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
We had a lucky break, when we arrived at Birkenau, a couple of Jewish guys from our town told us to say that we had a trade and that we were older than we were. I was 16 and said that I was 18, my brother Bernie was 14 ½ and said that he was 17. We said we were mechanics. Later they put us in a factory repairing freight cars that were damaged in the war.
They dehumanized us; I remember I became very sick; my father was able to arrange for me to go the infirmary. It was a little crazy, here they are sending thousands of people to their deaths every day, and I was in the infirmary where they took a throat culture to be sent to a lab. I remember one man who died; his son came to see him. The son was so desperate to survive that he took his late father’s ration of bread and a gold tooth from his mouth in order to survive himself.
My mother and 11 year old sister Judith were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
After the war, we walked; hitchhiked back home. We were ardent Zionists and in 1948, my father, brother, and I went to Israel. It was difficult to make a go of it then in Israel. My father had a sister in the United States. We had agreed that if it did not work out, we would join her. We could not get in at first because of the quota. We moved to Montreal, then later to Detroit.
Name of Concentration / Labor Camp(s)
Occupation after the war
Controller and businessman.
Spouse
Diane,
Community volunteer.
Children
Jeffrey, investment banker, Barbara, advertising executive.
Grandchildren
Four.
What do you think helped you to survive?
Being with my father and my brother. My father looked out for us; my brother worked in the kitchen for a while and helped us have some food.
What message would you like to leave for future generations?
Be proud of your Jewishness and be a part of the Community.
We cannot survive unless we band together and help each other and help Israel. I have been active in the Jewish Federation of metropolitan Detroit because I feel I owe it to pay back to the community. Federation takes care of local people and the Jewish people in Israel and all over the world.
I have been the chair of Federation’s Annual Campaign and I have been very involved helping Yad Ezra, which provides kosher food to needy Jewish families. My wife and I are very proud of the fact that Yad Ezra named their food warehouse, the Emery and Diane Klein Distribution Center.
I was the president of the Hebrew Free Loan Society, have been on the national board of AIPAC, the Israel lobby, and was the president of Mopac, the Democratic Party lobby.
In 2006, my wife and I were very honored to be the recipients of the Fred M. Butzel Award, recognized as the highest honor the Detroit Jewish community can bestow upon its leaders.
Survivor's map
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