Ruth G. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Ruth G., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1922. She recalls a happy childhood in an assimilated family; increasing antisemitism after 1933; expulsion from public school; a prohibition against her father treating non-Jews (he was a physician); little impact from Kristallnacht (they did not live in a Jewish area); impoverishment; having to move; assistance from her father's former patients; studying nursing; forced labor in a munitions factory beginning in October 1941; her brother's forced labor for Siemens; going into hiding in January 1943; moving several times; assistance from non-Jews, including a Spanish diplomat and a Wehrmacht officer; posing as a non-Jew; working as a nanny and a domestic; her brother and future husband being hidden by non-Jews in a factory; joining them in December 1944 with her mother and friend; Allied bombings; liberation by Soviet troops on April 26, 1945; reunion with her father (he hid elsewhere); marriage in October; and emigration to the United States from Bremerhaven in May 1946. She discusses her father's false sense of security as a veteran; recognition of their rescuers by Yad Vashem; sharing her experiences with her children; and visiting Germany with them. She shows photographs.

3 videocassettes