In combinatie met onze “Partners in de zorg” programma gefinancierd door de UJA-Federatie van New York, de Y zal interviews bevatten van zes lokale overlevenden om het verhaal van elk individu beter te begrijpen. Deze interviews zullen worden tentoongesteld in de Hebrew Tabernacle-galerij “Ervaar een tijd van oorlog en daarna: Portretten van pittige overlevenden van de Holocaust”. De galerie opent op vrijdag 8 november haar deuren.
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.
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, en 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.
Dit interview werd afgenomen door Halley Goldberg van het Y’s Partners in Caring-initiatief en is eigendom van de YM&YWHA van Washington Heights en Inwood. Het gebruik van dit materiaal zonder schriftelijke toestemming van zowel de Y als de geïnterviewde is ten strengste verboden. Lees hier meer over het Partners in Caring-programma: http://ywashhts.org/partners-caring-0
Hebreeuwse Tabernakel Armin en Estelle Gold Wing-galerijin trotse samenwerking metde YM&YWHA van Washington Heights en Inwoodnodigt u uit voor onzeNovember december, 2013 Expositie“Ervaar een tijd van oorlog en daarna: Portretten van pittige overlevenden van de Holocaust” met foto's en sculpturen van: YAEL BEN-ZION, PETER BULOW en ROJ RODRIGUEZ. In combinatie met een speciale service ter nagedachtenisvan de75e verjaardag van de Kristallnacht - de nacht van gebroken glasDiensten en openingsreceptie van de kunstenaar, vrijdag, 8 november, 2013 7:30 p.m.
Een verklaring van de Y : ” Decennia lang is de Washington Heights/Inwood Y dat geweest, en dat blijft zo, een toevluchtsoord voor wie op zoek is naar een toevluchtsoord, respect en begrip. Velen die onze deuren binnenkomen en aan onze programma's deelnemen, hebben beproevingen en beproevingen meegemaakt die we ons niet eens kunnen voorstellen. Voor sommigen, wie zal deel uitmaken van deze tentoonstelling, Eén zo’n gruwel is in de wereld bekend geworden als ‘De Holocaust’ – de systematische moord op zes miljoen Joden in Europa.
Wij bij de Y herinneren ons het verleden, eer degenen die in die tijd leefden en stierven, en de waarheid veiligstellen voor toekomstige generaties. In het belang van onszelf en onze kinderen, we moeten de verhalen doorgeven van degenen die het kwaad van oorlog hebben ervaren. Er zijn lessen te leren voor de toekomst. De interviews zijn gedocumenteerd door Halley Goldberg, een programmabegeleider ‘Partners in Caring’. Dit essentiële programma werd mogelijk gemaakt door een genereuze subsidie van de UJA-Federatie van New York, ontworpen om de relaties met synagogen in Washington Heights en Inwood te verbeteren. “
Onze gezamenlijke kunsttentoonstelling bevat portretten en interviews van overlevenden van de Holocaust, Hanna Eisner, Charlie en Lilli Friedman, Parel Rosenzveig, Fredy Seidel en Ruth Wertheimer, die allemaal lid zijn van de Hebreeuwse Tabernakel, een joodse gemeente waar veel Duitse joden de nazi's ontvluchtten en het geluk hadden naar Amerika te komen, sloot zich eind jaren dertig aan. Daarnaast eren we ook Holocaust-overlevende Gizelle Schwartz Bulow- moeder van onze kunstenaar Peter Bulow en overlevende van de Tweede Wereldoorlog Yan Neznanskiy – vader van de Y’s Chief Program Officer, Victoria Neznansky.
Een speciale sabbatdienst, met luidsprekers, ter nagedachtenis aan de 75e verjaardag van de Kristallnacht (de Nacht van Gebroken Glas) gaat vooraf aan de opening van de tentoonstelling Gold Gallery/Y:De diensten beginnen stipt om 7 uur:30 p.m. Iedereen is uitgenodigd om hierbij aanwezig te zijn.
Voor openingstijden van de galerie of voor meer informatie kunt u bellen met de synagoge op212-568-8304 of ziehttp://www.hebrewtabernacle.orgVerklaring van de kunstenaar: Yael Ben-Zionwww.yaelbenzion.comYael Ben-Zion werd geboren in Minneapolis, MN en opgegroeid in Israël. Ze is afgestudeerd aan het General Studies Program van het International Center of Photography. Ben-Zion is de ontvanger van diverse subsidies en onderscheidingen, meest recentelijk van de Puffin Foundation en van NoMAA, en haar werk is tentoongesteld in de Verenigde Staten en Europa. Ze heeft twee monografieën van haar werk gepubliceerd. Ze woont met haar man in Washington Heights, en hun tweelingjongens.
Verklaring van de kunstenaar: Peter Bulow: www.peterbulow.com
Mijn moeder als kind, tijdens de Holocaust ondergedoken had gezeten. Door de jaren heen, haar ervaring, of wat ik dacht dat haar ervaring zou zijn, heeft een grote invloed op mij gehad. Deze invloed komt zowel in mijn persoonlijke als in mijn artistieke leven tot uiting. Ik ben geboren in India, woonde als jong kind in Berlijn en emigreerde op leeftijd met mijn ouders naar de VS 8. Ik heb een Masters in Schone Kunsten in beeldhouwkunst. Ik ontvang ook een subsidie waarmee ik een beperkt aantal bronzen bustes van overlevenden van de Holocaust kan maken. Laat het me weten als je geïnteresseerd bent om deel uit te maken van dit project.
Verklaring van de kunstenaar :Roj Rodriguez: www.rojrodriguez.com
Mijn oeuvre weerspiegelt mijn reis vanuit Houston, TX – waar ik ben geboren en getogen – naar New York – waar, blootgesteld aan zijn etnische achtergrond, culturele en sociaal-economische diversiteit en haar unieke kijk op immigranten– Ik vond een hernieuwd respect voor ieders cultuur. Ik heb stage gelopen bij gerenommeerde fotografen, reisde veel de wereld rond en werkte samen met veel topprofessionals in het veld. Sinds januari, 2006, mijn carrière als onafhankelijk fotograaf is een proces geworden van het aannemen van persoonlijke fotografieprojecten die voortkomen uit mijn eigen begrip van de manier waarop we de wereld delen en onze creativiteit als geheel uitoefenen.
