Ruth Gruber

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Ruth Gruber
Manhattan, New York
, U.S.
OccupationJournalist, photographer, writer, humanitarian, U.S. government official

Ruth Gruber (September 30, 1911 – November 17, 2016) was an American journalist, photographer, writer,

humanitarian
, and United States government official.

Born in

Exodus 1947 were refused entry to British-controlled Palestine, and she documented their deportation back to Germany
.

In subsequent years, she covered the evacuation of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. She was a recipient of the Norman Mailer Prize.

Early life

Ruth Gruber was born in Brooklyn, New York, one of five children of Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Gussie (Rockower) and David Gruber.[2] She dreamed of becoming a writer and was encouraged by her parents to obtain higher education. She matriculated at New York University at the age of 15. At eighteen she won a postgraduate fellowship at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.[3] In 1931, she won another fellowship from the Institute of International Education to study in Cologne, Germany.[4][5] She received a Ph.D. from the University of Cologne in German Philosophy, Modern English Literature, and Art History, becoming (at that time) the youngest person in the world to receive a doctorate.[6] The subject of her dissertation was Virginia Woolf. While in Germany, Gruber witnessed Nazi rallies and after completing her studies and returning to America, she brought the awareness of the dangers of Nazism.[6] Gruber's writing career began in 1932. In 1935, the

about women under Fascism and Communism. While working for the Herald Tribune, she became the first foreign correspondent to fly through Siberia into the Soviet Arctic
.

Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Interior

During

Geneva Convention.[9] Throughout the voyage, the Army troop transport USNS Henry Gibbins was hunted by Nazi seaplanes and U-boats. Gruber's book Haven: The Dramatic Story of 1000 World War II Refugees and How They Came to America
was based on case histories she recorded as she interviewed the refugees.

Since the

Roosevelt acted by executive authority and invited the group of one thousand to visit America. The refugees were to be guests of the president and upon arriving in New York, they were transferred to Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter, formerly a decommissioned Army training base in Oswego, New York, and locked behind a chain link fence with barbed wire. While U.S. government agencies argued about whether they should be allowed to stay or, at some point, be deported to Europe, Gruber lobbied to keep them through the end of the war. It was not until January 1946 that the decision was made to allow them to apply for American residency. This was the only attempt by the United States to shelter Jewish refugees during the war.[10]

The Safe Haven Museum and Education Center was set up in Oswego, New York dedicated to keeping alive the stories of the 982 refugees from World War II who were allowed into the United States as "guests" of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Post-war career

Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

In 1946, Gruber took leave from her federal post to return to journalism.

Harry Truman pressed Great Britain to open the doors of British Mandate of Palestine. The committee members spent four months in Europe, Palestine, and the Arab countries and another month in Switzerland digesting their experiences. At the end of its deliberations, the committee's twelve members unanimously agreed that Britain should allow 100,000 Jewish immigrants to settle in Palestine. British foreign minister Ernest Bevin
rejected the finding.

Eventually the issue was taken up by the recently established

UNSCOP). Gruber accompanied UNSCOP as a correspondent for the New York Herald
.

Exodus 1947

Gruber witnessed the ship

Exodus 1947 entering the Haifa harbor after it was intercepted by the Royal Navy while making an attempt to deliver 4,500 Jewish refugees. To meet the refugees, Gruber flew to Cyprus, where she witnessed and photographed refugees detained by the British. The British then sent the refugees to Port-de-Bouc
in France and Gruber went there.

The refugees refused to disembark, however, and, after 18 days' standoff, the British decided to ship the Jews back to Germany. Out of many journalists from around the world reporting on the affair, Gruber alone was allowed by the British to accompany the DPs back to Germany. Aboard the prison ship Runnymede Park, Gruber photographed the refugees, confined in a wire cage with barbed wire on top, defiantly raising a Union Jack flag on which they had painted a swastika.

After 1950

In 1951, Gruber married Philip H. Michaels, a community leader in the South Bronx. She gave birth to two children, one of whom is former Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health David Michaels, and continued her journalistic travels. She wrote a popular column for Hadassah Magazine, "Diary of an American Housewife."[11] Her niece is science writer Dava Sobel.[12]

Some years after Philip Michaels' death in 1968, Gruber married longtime New York City Social Services administrator Henry J. Rosner in 1974.

In 1978, she spent a year in Israel writing Raquela: A Woman of Israel, about an Israeli nurse,

National Jewish Book Award in 1979 for Best Book on Israel.[11][13]

In 1985, at the age of 74, she visited isolated Jewish villages in Ethiopia and described the rescue of the Ethiopian Jews in Rescue: The Exodus of the Ethiopian Jews. Gruber received many awards for her writing and humanitarian acts, including the Na'amat Golda Meir Human Rights Award and awards from the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance.

On October 21, 2008, Gruber was honored for her work defending free expression by the National Coalition Against Censorship. In 2016, an exhibit of her photographs titled Ruth Gruber: Photojournalist was on display at the Oregon Jewish Museum in Portland.[14]

She died at the age of 105 on November 17, 2016.[8][15]

In 2011, at the age of 100, Ruth Gruber's work as a photojournalist - spanning six decades on four continents - was the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the International Center of Photography in New York. The exhibition, Ruth Gruber: Photojournalist, curated by Maya Benton, is traveling internationally through 2020. Gruber's photographs, organized chronologically, include Soviet Arctic (1935-1936); Alaska Territory (1941–43); Henry Gibbons/Oswego, New York (1944); Exodus 1947; Runnymede Park (1947); Cyprus Internment Camp (1947); Israel/Middle East (1949–51); North Africa (1951-51); Ethiopia (1985).

Gruber's first volume of her autobiography Ahead of Time: My Early Years as a Foreign Correspondent was published in 1991.

Portrayals

The 2001 television film Haven is based on Gruber's life story. The film stars

Emmy Award for her role. A documentary about Gruber's life, titled Ahead of Time, was released in 2010.[16]

Publications

Books

External videos
video icon Presentation by Gruber on Exodus 1947, October 21, 1999, C-SPAN
video icon Presentation by Gruber on Inside of Time, April 2, 2003, interviewed by her niece, Dava Sobel, C-SPAN

References

  1. ^ "A Trouble-Shooter for Mr. Ickes," by Mary Braggiotti, New York Post, November 17, 1944
  2. ^ "Miriam's Cup: Biography of Ruth Gruber". Miriamscup.com. Retrieved December 6, 2018.
  3. ^ "Breaking Ground: Dr. Ruth Gruber". Womenworking.com. Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved November 22, 2016.
  4. ^ Ruth Gruber (Institute of International Education)
  5. ^ "Dr. Ruth Gruber receives IIE's First Annual Fritz Redlich Alumni Award". Iie.org. Retrieved December 6, 2018.
  6. ^ a b Chapter 107. "Mother" Ruth's Journeys (American Jewish Historical Society)
  7. PBS
    )
  8. ^ a b "Journalist and author Ruth Gruber dies in NY at age 105". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 19, 2016.
  9. ISBN 0-8129-3154-8
  10. ^ Allen, John (2002). "Finding Safe Harbor". Waa.uwalumni.com. Archived from the original on March 5, 2012. Retrieved January 25, 2013.
  11. ^ a b Chapter 108. Ruth Gruber's Exodus: Part II (American Jewish Historical Society)
  12. ^ Brawarsky, Sandee (November 22, 2016). "100 Years Of Asking Questions". The New York Jewish Week. Retrieved March 14, 2019.
  13. ^ "Past Winners". Jewish Book Council. Retrieved January 21, 2020.
  14. ^ "Ruth Gruber, Photojournalist". Icp.org. August 23, 2016.
  15. ^ McFadden, Robert D. (November 17, 2016). "Ruth Gruber, a Fearless Chronicler of the Jewish Struggle, Dies at 105". The New York Times. Retrieved December 6, 2018.
  16. ^ Michel, Karen (October 15, 2011). "A Woman Of Photos And Firsts, Ruth Gruber At 100". NPR. Retrieved October 16, 2011.

External links

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