Gerda Weissmann Klein’s memoir begins by recounting the day of September 3, 1939, as the German army occupied her Polish hometown of Bielitz (Bielsko). This event was part of the swift invasion of Poland that marked the start of World War II. Tensions between the countries had been rising for nearly a decade at this point; although the two had signed a non-aggression pact in 1934, Poland recognized that Adolf Hitler’s long-term aim was at best to make the country a client state and at worst to fully subsume it. In 1939, the Free City of Danzig became a particular point of dispute, as the city, which had been aligned with Poland since World War I, had a sizeable ethnically German population. Meanwhile, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, or the Treaty of Non-Aggression, which formalized an agreement to partition Eastern Europe into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence. This included the partition of Poland, paving the way for the German invasion on September 1 (the USSR would follow on September 17).

Gerda’s region, Upper Silesia, was annexed directly into the German Reich in October 1939. Bielitz became the administrative center of a new territory, Kreis Bielitz, intended for rapid “Germanization,” a policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide that involved the systematic expulsion and persecution of local populations (primarily Slavic and Jewish) in Eastern Europe with the goal of resettling the territory with Germans. The Nazi regime believed that Poland was an ideal starting point for their new brutal policies since the countries shared a border and there was significant linguistic overlap. However, their similarities didn’t stop the German military from committing atrocities against the Polish people, especially Polish Jews. The Jewish community of Bielsko-Biała, which numbered around 8,000 before the war, was immediately subjected to escalating anti-Jewish decrees that functionally criminalized existing as a Jewish person.

Gerda’s account of her family’s experience depicts the impact of these policies. She describes how neighbors who had been friends suddenly hailed the German soldiers as part of their “liberation,” underscoring the swift societal shift. The memoir chronicles the implementation of segregationist laws, such as the mandated wearing of armbands and then a yellow star, which visibly marked Jews for discrimination and violence. The family’s dispossession mirrors the official policy of property confiscation, culminating in the December 1939 expulsion order demanding that they leave their home with valuables and keys left on a table for the authorities. Gerda also describes how the dispossession of Jewish citizens directly enriched Nazis and their collaborators, as they stole their houses and possessions for themselves. For instance, the Nazis ordered Gerda’s friend Ilse to surrender her piano to a German, effectively ending her promising musical career. This historical context frames the memoir’s opening chapters, illustrating how Nazi administrative and ideological goals translated into the systematic dismantling of a family’s life, rights, and security.