Fred Klein was born in Pilsen on 11 August 1922. His father Alfred was a renowned Pilsen doctor - dermatologist.
When Fred was 18 months old, he broke his collarbone, breaking it again five years later at the same place. Since then, his father had banned him from any sports, he was afraid he would get hurt again. He only allowed him swimming and trips, but Fred still felt clumsy. Similarly, Dad tried to protect Fred from political developments. After the occupation of the Sudetenland, he sent him to study in Prague, where Fred attended the famous Officina Pragensis graphic school.
Fred's father was arrested on the first day of the occupation, and was later deported from the Buchenwald concentration camp to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he was murdered. Fred continued his studies until August 1941, when the graphic school, under the direction of Petr Kien, was expelled from the premises in the Vinohrady Synagogue and ceased to exist. Fred was summoned to do forced labor and placed in the Jewish labor camp in Sazava - Velka Losenice. There, together with hundreds of other prisoners, he worked on the construction of a railroad track. In December 1941 he was allowed to return home to Pilsen.
Already on 18 January 1942, Fred and his mother were deported from Pilsen to the ghetto in Terezin and, in October of the same year, to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, where, upon arrival, he luckily removed his glasses and thus passed through the selection process of prisoners suitable for slave labor. Spectacled prisoners declared unfit were murdered upon arrival. After a few weeks, Fred was deported to Friedland camp, a branch of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp.
For a time he was protected by the ability to paint: before it was strictly forbidden, he drew pictures for the local SS men and their wives. At the beginning of May 1945, the SS men escaped from the camp, the camp commander refused to obey the order to kill all the prisoners.
When Fred returned to Pilsen a few weeks later, he was the sole survivor of the entire extended family of more than thirty. After the communist coup in February 1948, he decided to leave the country. He would have had to wait many years for an American visa, so he moved to Argentina. He moved to the United States with his wife Susi and daughter Helen in 1963, and the family settled in Los Angeles.
The interview was recorded on 22 September 1995 in Los Angeles, USA.