Sempena kami “Rakan Kongsi dalam Prihatin” program yang dibiayai oleh UJA-Federation of New York, Y akan menampilkan temu bual daripada enam mangsa tempatan yang terselamat untuk lebih memahami kisah setiap individu. Wawancara ini akan dipamerkan di galeri Hebrew Tabernacle “Mengalami Masa Perang dan Selepasnya: Potret Terselamat Holocaust Berjiwa”. Galeri akan dibuka pada hari Jumaat 8 November.
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, Germany, 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.
Dalam 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, dan 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.
Temu bual ini telah dikendalikan oleh Halley Goldberg daripada inisiatif Rakan Kongsi Y dalam Penyayang dan milik YM&ialah program yang dibiayai oleh bandar yang menyediakan pekerjaan musim panas dan pengalaman pendidikan kepada umur Belia New York. Penggunaan bahan ini tanpa kebenaran bertulis daripada Y dan orang yang ditemuduga adalah dilarang sama sekali. Ketahui lebih lanjut tentang program Rakan Kongsi dalam Prihatin di sini: http://ywashhts.org/partners-caring-0
Tabernakel Ibrani Galeri Armin dan Estelle Gold Wingdalam perkongsian bangga denganyang YM&ialah program yang dibiayai oleh bandar yang menyediakan pekerjaan musim panas dan pengalaman pendidikan kepada umur Belia New Yorkmenjemput anda ke kamiNovember Disember, 2013 Pameran“Mengalami Masa Perang dan Selepasnya: Potret Terselamat Holocaust Berjiwa” dengan gambar dan arca oleh: YAEL BEN-ZION, PETER BULOW dan ROJ RODRIGUEZ. Sempena Perkhidmatan khas dalam ingatandaripada75Ulang Tahun ke-Kristallnacht -Malam Pecah KacaPerkhidmatan dan Sambutan Perasmian Artis, Jumaat, 8 November, 2013 7:30 p.m.
Kenyataan daripada Y : ” Selama beberapa dekad Washington Heights/Inwood Y telah, dan terus menjadi, tempat berlindung bagi mereka yang mencari perlindungan, rasa hormat dan persefahaman. Ramai yang memasuki pintu kami dan mengambil bahagian dalam program kami telah melalui ujian dan kesusahan yang tidak dapat kami bayangkan.. Untuk beberapa, yang akan menjadi sebahagian daripada pameran ini, satu kengerian sedemikian telah dikenali kepada dunia hanya sebagai "The Holocaust" – pembunuhan sistematik enam juta orang Yahudi Eropah.
Kami di Y ingat masa lalu, menghormati mereka yang hidup dan mati pada masa itu, dan menjaga kebenaran untuk generasi akan datang. Demi diri kita dan anak-anak kita, kita mesti mewariskan kisah mereka yang pernah mengalami keburukan peperangan. Ada pengajaran untuk masa hadapan. Temu bual didokumentasikan oleh Halley Goldberg, seorang penyelia program “Rakan Kongsi dalam Penyayang”.. Program penting ini dijayakan melalui geran murah hati daripada UJA-Federation of New York, direka untuk meningkatkan hubungan dengan rumah ibadat di Washington Heights dan Inwood. “
Pameran seni bersama kami menampilkan potret dan wawancara mangsa yang terselamat daripada Holocaust, Hannah Eisner, Charlie dan Lilli Friedman, Mutiara Rosenzveig, Fredy Seidel dan Ruth Wertheimer, kesemuanya adalah ahli The Hebrew Tabernacle, sebuah jemaah Yahudi yang banyak orang Yahudi Jerman melarikan diri dari Nazi dan cukup bertuah untuk datang ke Amerika, menyertai pada akhir 1930-an. Di samping itu, kami juga akan memberi penghormatan kepada mangsa yang selamat dari Holocaust, Gizelle Schwartz Bulow- ibu kepada artis kami Peter Bulow dan mangsa Perang Dunia II Yan Neznanskiy – bapa kepada Ketua Pegawai Program Y, semua program di laman Y digantung buat sementara waktu.
Perkhidmatan Sabat yang istimewa, dengan pembesar suara, sebagai peringatan Ulang Tahun Kristallnacht ke-75 (Malam Pecah Kaca) mendahului pembukaan pameran Galeri Emas/Y:Perkhidmatan bermula dengan segera pada 7:30 pm. Semua dijemput hadir.
Untuk waktu buka galeri atau untuk maklumat lanjut sila hubungi rumah ibadat di212-568-8304 atau lihathttp://www.hebrewtabernacle.orgKenyataan Artis: Yael Ben-Zionwww.yaelbenzion.comYael Ben-Zion dilahirkan di Minneapolis, MN dan dibesarkan di Israel. Beliau adalah graduan Program Pengajian Am Pusat Fotografi Antarabangsa. Ben-Zion adalah penerima pelbagai geran dan anugerah, terbaharu daripada Yayasan Puffin dan daripada NoMAA, dan karyanya telah dipamerkan di Amerika Syarikat dan di Eropah. Dia telah menerbitkan dua monograf karyanya. Dia tinggal di Washington Heights bersama suaminya, dan anak kembar mereka.
Kenyataan Artis: Peter Bulow: www.peterbulow.com
Ibu saya semasa kecil, telah bersembunyi semasa Holocaust. Selama bertahun, pengalaman dia, atau apa yang saya bayangkan sebagai pengalamannya, telah memberi pengaruh yang besar kepada saya. Pengaruh ini tercermin baik dalam peribadi saya dan dalam kehidupan seni saya. Saya dilahirkan di India, tinggal sebagai anak kecil di Berlin dan berhijrah ke AS bersama ibu bapa saya pada usia 8. Saya mempunyai Sarjana dalam Seni Halus dalam arca. Saya juga penerima geran yang membolehkan saya membuat patung gangsa yang terselamat daripada Holocaust dalam jumlah terhad. Sila beritahu saya jika anda berminat untuk menjadi sebahagian daripada projek ini.
Kenyataan Artis :Roj Rodriguez: www.rojrodriguez.com
Badan kerja saya mencerminkan perjalanan saya dari Houston, TX - tempat saya dilahirkan dan dibesarkan - ke New York - di mana, terdedah kepada etniknya, kepelbagaian budaya dan sosioekonomi serta pandangan uniknya terhadap pendatang– Saya mendapati penghormatan yang diperbaharui terhadap budaya setiap orang. Saya telah belajar dengan jurugambar yang mapan, mengembara ke seluruh dunia secara meluas dan bekerjasama dengan ramai profesional terkemuka dalam bidang tersebut. Sejak Januari, 2006, kerjaya saya sebagai jurugambar bebas telah menjadi satu proses mengambil projek fotografi peribadi yang muncul daripada pemahaman saya sendiri tentang cara kita berkongsi dunia dan menggunakan kreativiti kita secara keseluruhan.
