In conjunctione cum nostris “Socii in Caring” progressio a UJA-Foederationis Novi Eboraci fundus, colloquia Y faciet ex sex reliquiis localibus ut melius cognoscant singulas fabulas. Hi conloquia ostendentur in porticu Hebraico Tabernaculi “Experiens tempus belli et ultra: Effigies SPIRITUAE Holocaustae reliquiae”. Porticus aperietur Veneris die 8 mensis Novembris.
Ruth Wertheimer has been a member at the Y for over a decade. You can find Ruth at the Y for special events and programming, especially at Sunday concerts at the Center for Adults Living Well @ the Y.
Ruth Wertheimer(photography by Roj Rodriguez: www.rojrodriguez.com)
Ruth Wertheimer was born in Mannheim, Germany on June 6, 1931. At the age of one, her father died. Her mother raised her and her older brother in Mannheim, Germany. Ruth’s mother owned a thrift shop in town. Growing up in Mannheim was difficult. She remembers having very little schooling as a child. Ruth recalls experiencing anti-Semitism from a very young age. She recounts being called a dirty Jew as well as being beaten up in the streets. The anti-Semitism was so rampant that Ruth’s brother used to take her to their grandmother’s house. They would avoid main roads to prevent being beaten up. Their mother could not join them because she was busy working at the family’s store.
In Mannheim, Germania, Kristallnacht began on November 10, 1938. Ruth recalls the events of Kristallnacht, “we lived in this place with an Orthodox synagogue that had a rabbi and a cantor. There was an office there for social workers and a Jewish school. These buildings surrounded a schoolyard…It started at 6 in the morning, you heard the noise of the burning buildings…it was terrible. There was a lot of noise and I was scared.” Ruth’s synagogue, The Haupt synagogue, was destroyed that day.
Once the destruction was finished, Ruth remembers her family’s store being completely ruined. “We had a beautiful photograph of my brother in color and they took it and put it out in the street…and wrote underneath ‘dirty Jew.’ Dirty Jew! It was a beautiful picture.” After seeing the destruction, Ruth’s family decided that they should leave the building they were living in. Her grandmother was a diabetic and she used to receive her injections from nuns so the family decided that it would be best to seek refuge with the nuns. The entire way there, they were followed by teenagers who were calling them ‘dirty Jew’. Ruth was able to find protection with the nuns for a while. From there, she and her family left to stay with relatives.
In 1940, Ruth’s brother celebrated his bar mitzvah in an Orthodox synagogue in Mannheim. Three weeks after this joyous occasion, she and her family were rounded up and brought to a camp called Camp Gurs in France. Ruth remembers “we had one hour to pack and we didn’t know where we were going. We were put in some kind of recreation hall overnight, I’m not sure anymore, and the next day we were put on a train and we did not know where we were going. I had a grand aunt that was there too and she was with us and she brought sugar cubes and lemon to eat. We had nothing to eat. Finally we arrived in the camp. It was horrible: you had mud up to your knees, you were in a barrack with 20 people maybe. Rat, mice, lice, you name it. You slept on the floor with straw.” After being in Camp Gurs for a year, someone from the organization OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants) came to the camp. OSE is a French- Jewish organization that saved hundreds of refugee children during the Holocaust. The representatives from OSE asked the parents in the camp if they wanted to give up their children. Ruth recollects that her mother never wanted to give up any of her children, but with great difficulty, she did. Ruth was given up first. From Camp Gurs, Ruth was taken to Chabannes. After being in Chabannes for some time, Ruth remembers that it was not safe there anymore and some of the older children were taken to Auschwitz. After this, OSE felt that it would be best to move the children.
Ruth was placed with a Jewish family for four months. She was then moved to a gentile family. Ruth remembers, “…my name was not Ruth anymore. I was Renee…I wasn’t Jewish then.” In France, children went to school on Saturdays instead of Thursdays. Ruth went to school on Saturdays. One day at school, the police came and began to question Ruth, “I was always told to tell the truth. So I told the police everything.” She informed the family that she was staying with and that night, social workers from OSE came and took Ruth and placed her in a convent in 1943. She changed her name again to Renee Latty.
While hiding in the convent, Ruth remembers, “I did the sign of the cross with the left hand, you are supposed to do it with the right hand! Then they brought me to church and I didn’t know anything. Everyone was going into a booth so I went too. It was a confession booth. I didn’t know what that was…I didn’t know what to do…I became so Catholic, that you didn’t know that I was never not Catholic.” Ruth stayed in the convent for about a year until the war was liberated.
After the war was liberated, Ruth stayed at different OSE homes. For two years, Ruth did not know where her brother was. She and her brother finally reunited at one of the OSE homes. They then lived in Limoges, France and then near Paris before traveling to America together.
At the age of 15, Ruth, her brother, et 72 other children traveled to America together on the children transport. They landed in America on September 7, 1946. The boat was overcrowded and many of the children were sea sick. When they arrived in New York, there was a strike at the pier and they could not dock. The OSE was able to arrange for a small boat to come and take the children ashore.
When Ruth first got to America, she lived with an aunt and uncle and says that it was very difficult for her. Shortly after, she moved to Queens with another relative. This relative had a daughter around the same age as Ruth. She remembers starting school and that her relative’s daughter went to a better school than she did. Ruth had a difficult time managing in school and her relatives told her that if she did not finish school, they would kick her out. Because she was having such difficulties in school, Ruth was kicked out in 1948.
Since June 1948, Ruth has lived in Washington Heights. She realized that she had to learn a trade in order to survive so she decided to go to beautician school. She attended the Wilfred Academy and fell in love with her courses. She went on to receive her beautician’s license. Hebrew Tabernacle was the first synagogue she joined since she came to America and she has been a member ever since. She has one son and two grandchildren who live in Wisconsin.
This interview was conducted by Halley Goldberg of the Y’s Partners in Caring initiative and belongs to the YM&YWHA de Washington arces et Inwood. Usus huius materiae sine consensu scripto dato tam Y quam euentum stricte prohibetur. Plura de Sociis in programmatis curandis hic reperi: http://ywashhts.org/partners-caring-0
Tabernaculum Hebraicum Armin et Estelle Aurum Wing Galleryet in societate superbirein YM *&YWHA de Washington arces et Inwoodinvitat te ad nostrumNovember/December, 2013 Exhibit“Experiens tempus belli et ultra: Effigies SPIRITUAE Holocaustae reliquiae” per imagines et sculpturas by: YAEL BEN-ZION, PETRUS BULOW et ROJ RODRIGUEZ. In conjunctione cum speciali Service in memoriamde75th Anniversary of Kristallnacht id est noctem Vitri fractiOfficia et Artist's Receptio Aperiens, Veneris, Novembris 8th, 2013 7:30 p.m.
Enuntiatum a Y * : ” Pro decenniis Washington Heights / Inwood Y fuit, ac pergit, portum petentibus, respexit et intellectus. Multi qui portas nostras intrant et programmata nostra participant, per tribulationes et tribulationes vixerunt, quas ne cogitari quidem possumus. Aliquot, quis erit pars huius exhibit, quis talis horror innotuerit mundo simpliciter ut « Holocausta ». – caedes systematica sex miliones Iudaeorum Europae.
Nos apud ego memini praeterita, honorificabit eos qui in tempore illo vixerunt et mortui sunt, et veritatem posteris tueatur. Pro nobis et filiis nostris, fabulas praeterire oportet eorum qui belli mala experti sunt. Lectiones sunt ut discantur in posterum. Colloquia confirmantur ab Halley Goldberg, a "Socii in Caring" programma supervisoris. Haec progressio vitalis possibilis facta est per generosam donationem ab UJA-Foederationis Novi Eboraci, ad augendae relationes cum synagogis in Washington Arcibus et Inwood. “
Nostra ars iuncturam exhibeat lineamenta imagines et colloquia reliquiarum Holocaustici, Anna Eisner, Charlie and Lilli Friedman, Margarita Rosenzveig, Fredy Seidel et Ruth Wertheimer, qui omnes membra sunt tabernaculum Hebraicum, Congregatio Judaica, quod multi Germani Judaei nazis fugientes et felix ad Americam venerint, coniuncta nuper 1930's. Insuper etiam honoramus Holocaustum superstes Gizelle Schwartz Bulow- mater artificis nostri Petri Bulow et WWII superstes Yan Neznanskiy - pater principalis Programmatis officialis., Victoria Neznansky.
Peculiaris sabbatum Service, cum loquentium, in memoriam 75th anniversario Kristallnacht (noctem Vitri) praecedit foramen Aurum Gallery / Y exhibent:Officia statim incipiunt ad VII ":30 post meridiem. Omnes invitantur ad comitatum.
Ad gallery horas apertas vel ad ulteriores notitias synagogam vocare placet212-568-8304 aut viderehttp://www.hebrewtabernacle.orgArtis Editio: Yael Ben-Zionwww.yaelbenzion.comYael Ben-Zion in consectetur, MN et erexit in Israel. Graduata est Programma de Studiorum Generalium Internationalium Centre Photography. Ben-Zion est recipiens variarum concessionum et praemiorum, recentissime ex Fundatione Puffin et NoMAA, et opus eius in Civitatibus Foederatis Americae et in Europa exhibitum est. Duo monumenta operis sui edidit. Cum marito in arces Washington habitat, et gemini pueri.
Artis Editio: Petrus Bulow: www.peterbulow.com
Mater mea sicut puer, fuerat in latebris in Holocaustum. Trans annos, eam experientiam, vel quod eam experientiam fuisse putabam, magnam vim habuit in me. Haec auctoritas tam in personali quam in artificiosa vita reflectitur. Ego natus sum in India, vixit puer parvulus Berolini et emigravit in US cum parentibus meis aetate 8. Magistros in Finibus Artibus in sculptura habeo. Ego quoque donam recipio , quae mihi paucas imagines aereas Holocausti superstites facere sinit .. Quaeso me certiorem facias si interesse in parte rei huius.
Artis Editio :Roj Rodriguez: www.rojrodriguez.com
Corpus meum opus itineris mei de Houston, TX – ubi natus sum et educatus – Novi Eboraci – ubi, expositae ad ethnic!, diversitas culturalis et oeconomicae oeconomicae eiusque unica sententia de immigrantibus– Renovatum inveni observantiam omnium culturae. Ego photographers bene confirmatum didici, iter per orbem late et cum multis doctorum summo in agro collaboravit. Cum Ianuarii, 2006, curriculo meo quasi sui iuris photographer factus est processus sumendi in personalis consequat inceptis quae ex meo sensu emergunt viae communicamus mundum et nostram exercent creationem pro toto.
