Ruth Rosemberg 

 Hi, and welcome to the Last Generation. I'm Maddie Kramer. In 2004, my grandma Susie passed away and I never got the chance to ask her how she survived the Holocaust. Growing up, she knew she was Hungarian. And then she survived the war, but not really how that impact her life and how her own life impacted my mom's and even mine.

I wish I had the chance to know her more, learn her language, and really get to know her. Since 2017, I had an idea that I needed to bring families together to have the chance to talk to the grandparents and ask all the questions I couldn't. Because we are the last generation to get to know their stories, where they're alive.

You are gonna hear an accent 'cause I was raised in Argentina where my grandma escape after the war. This season we will listen to Holocaust survivors being asked questions by their grandkids. I hope you enjoy listening to these families having the most wonderful conversations. I loved every second of it.

When we think of the Holocaust, we think of the tragic stories, the survivors, that being part of this confrontation comes. What about the survivors escape? Before everything started, Ruth wouldn't call herself a survivor. She felt ashamed to take away from the people that had worse than her. Her grandkids reminded her that she lived through it and she survived, and that they really admire her.

Ruth was just seven years old when she was part of Crystal, also known as Crystal Knight in the beginning of the Holocaust. She moved to Manheim in March of 1939, and then she was deported to France where she was taken to a concentration camp and later was transferred to an orphanage while waiting for her parents to get this as to immigrate to United States.

Ruth recalls a time on the orphanage as terrifying being away from her parents and not knowing if they were alive. They met again after months arranging to meeting to lose France. Ruth and her parents immigrated to United States in June of 1942. She had a beautiful life. She had three children, two daughters and a son, four grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

She feels extremely fortunate for the life she had. My first question, grandma, do you ever feel, uh, bitter or sad about what happened? Not really about what happened. You have to be sad about it, that something like that happens, but personally, if I did, if it didn't happen, you wouldn't be here.

I wouldn't have met grandfather. Do you believe in God? Yes and no. Yeah, at one point, more so than now, before the Holocaust or just um, during the Holocaust, I did believe in it. You did? Yeah. So do you think now the fact that you don't, you say now less than before, is that because of the Holocaust or just other things in, in your, just in general.

He hasn't, he hasn't helped the, the country or she, or, you know, things that are going on. Uh, is he mad at the world? Mm, yeah. You really dunno. In a way. I do believe in it, in the religion more than God itself, I think. What are you most thankful about? About in your life? What are you most grateful for? Um, coming here.

Yeah. And eventually having a family and everything and life's been good. Do you, do you think about the holocaust often? Like your experiences in Germany? Um, I don't know if, if I say often. I mean, I do think about it and it does come up my mind what went, what we did, and what happened. Mm-hmm. And that it's still happening and it can happen in any country at any time.

Mm-hmm. There are always people there that wanna be. Uh, for whatever reason, money, power, are there things that you don't talk about? Not really. I mean, you don't talk about it that often and there's no one really, like my parents are gone and who would know what's been on. So it's kind of. Difficult talking about it.

Did they talk about it like when you, you know, I don't know, years, the, the following years, like, um, not too much. Unfortunately, we were not the ones that we being, that we were deported early. Right. And we went to France and we get out before everything really got bad for the Jews. Mm-hmm. And, um, we, you know, we never had the numbers or anything like that.

It was very different experience. Did you ever feel like, I mean, obviously I'm so grateful that you were not part of that, but did you ever feel like shame or guilt about like not being, no. No guilt in that part? Not at all. Except that I, if I spoke about it, I always would clarify that I was not in the Holocaust, but not in the real mm-hmm.

Part of it. Right. Well, you still had your home taken away from you. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Okay. For the house, grandma, how did. Parents and some of the older members of your family when they came over, kind of, um, adjust. And did they find it like difficult or was there anything that you could tell was, was offered different about them coming over to your No.

Um, when we came over, fortunately they were able to get jobs since we came over with nothing basically. And, uh, being. And my parents were very modern for that time. Mm-hmm. So they didn't, they went with the flow and they never really talked about it or how bad things, you know, that everything was taken away.

They never talked about that. And being that they came over and they had family here, and the boys were here, my brothers. Yeah. Yeah. But my parents never wanted to go back to Germany. Even to visit. Maybe it was too soon. It was 1969, so they were not ready to go back. Yeah. Did you ever, um, wonder like, why you, why your, like, why Judaism, why that religion?

Why, you know. Was there ever a question from that aspect, like the religious aspect? Um, well if you go back in history, there was always emit uh, going on. You had it in Portugal, you had it way before. So there always was something against one religion or another. So the Jews were probably less, more so involved in that than any of the others.

Mm-hmm. Maybe because whatever reason, I mean, going back to Egypt and everything, we always were antisemitic. Back then already. Are you angry at all about it?

I don't think I waste my time on being angry. It's something I can't change. It happened. Uh, you get over it, you live with it, and, um, you don't quell on it. Mm-hmm. Do you feel like that's how you deal with a lot of things in your life now too? Like you just Yes. Let them roll off your back? Yep. You don't get to this age, you can't change it.

Why bother? What's, what's like the one message you wanna, you would want people to take away from your experience, I guess of. The Holocaust. I don't really know. If anything, you can't really take anything away from it. It's just, it's just hoping that it doesn't happen and try to educate people that it shouldn't happen and treat people equally And, uh.

Face value. Mm. Making sure that, um, you treat people the way you wanna be treated. Hmm. Yeah, I like that. That's, that's it. And skin color doesn't matter. Whatever. Mm-hmm. It depends on the individual person and their, yeah. Yeah. Good message. I like that. Grandma. When, when you were raising your kids, all of our parents, um, was there anything from like your parents' reactions or how they raised you in Germany or.

When you first came over here that you kind of brought into your home or, or anything that you taught them when they were growing up? No. Change the same way, honest. Respectful so things don't change from one country to the other. And did you ever talk to them when they were growing up about what you had experienced or was it something that they didn't necessarily know or ask about until they were older?

We were only in there from 1940 to 1942. Mm-hmm. First came after 42. We missed it by about six weeks. Mm. If we wouldn't have gotten out when we did six, um, six weeks from that time, we would've been in Auschwitz for one of the camps. Then we might not be here today. Yeah. That's So we, you have to be thankful for little things.

That's one of them. Right. And so. I I'm gonna jump in, uh, 'cause I've heard your mother, uh, your grandmother rather give testimony for another project we did. It's Diana High. Um, but you know, your grandmother has that, that rose, uh ha. Uh, the GL rose colored glasses and, uh. Full glass, uh, glass half full, a attitude.

When she says only two years, and she was in, in GD detention camp, she was left alone and she had to meet her mother at the train station. So you, you, Ruth, you're minimizing, you know, you experience, but the thing is, if you really think about what the others experience. Ours was nothing in Competi. You can still have your own pain and trauma though.

Yeah, but the thing is, if you know what the others had and what would been on in those camps compared to what we had. Yeah. And the guards were outside, but then that were in our faces constantly. I mean, the living conditions were nothing to brag about. And you don't wanna think about it. One way to put it a shower once a month, you were lucky.

And then it was cold water. Mm-hmm. In the middle, the water was gone and you were still soapy. Yeah. I mean, things like that. But when you think about what people went through in Auschwitz, in those camps, you have to be thankful for what you had. Yes. You can't, you can't imagine what they went through. Yeah, sure.

So it wouldn't be fair for me to say how terrible everything was when there was things going on. Much worse. Yeah. Only in hindsight you can see that, right? Like, 'cause you didn't know what was going to be. But do you really remember as like a 10-year-old, like being in, in the. Oh yeah. In the camp, like, oh, yes.

And, and did you have that same outlook? Probably not at the age of nine, no. Right. Yeah. That's how old I was when we went to the camp. Uh, you live from day to day and um, you were glad to get some food and, um. Fortunately, I was only in the camp for about six months and then I went to the orphanage or whatever the home was.

Mm-hmm. So I was different except there I never knew if I was gonna see my parents again or anyone again. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So do you remember being anything else scared, but uh. Only six months, like I wouldn't last a day in that camp. You'd be surprised how you surprised you need and you needed to do it. You do it right.

You don't think about survival is a very strong, uh, emotion. Right. At any age. That's true. At what point were you like the most, um, I don't know, like scared, like, you know, like were you. Where you didn't know, like what might happen. Do you remember that sort of, do you remember feeling that way at a specific point?

Not really At any particular time. Mm-hmm. I mean, train station, waiting for my mother, I think that was kinda scary. Yeah. That not what was gonna happen and whatever. Uh, and even coming over and the, uh, ship was scary because the U Boths were there. Hmm. And, uh, everything else. So you had scary times. Yeah.

Yeah. Grandma, how much do you think at like nine, 10 years old you like, fully understood your experience at the time? Or was it not until like years afterwards or you got to the states that you kind of like understood what was totally going on? Uh, while I was there? Um. You never knew what if you wanted.

We always had the idea of coming to America to one of the safe countries and not knowing if you're going to be able to or not, was always kind of even at the age of nine or 10 concerned. And, uh.

Known to wait for papers for the exit visa and everything. Uh, you went for the mail every day to make sure to see if your name was called Mm. To see if you got that letter. I mean. It was scary, if you think about it. Yes. Yeah.

And the notice came after, don't forget, after Pearl Harbor. So when Pearl Harbor happened, we never, you were more concerned because you didn't know what was gonna happen. Being that America was not a neutral country anymore.

So that was kind of scary. And walking down the s throats in Mae with the SSS coming by, so my mother and I didn't talk, so they wouldn't know that we were, uh, German. Mm-hmm. You might have guessed it, but that was about it. Yeah. I can't think of any other questions. Thanks for answering them. Grandma.

Welcome. You're welcome. You can call me. The Last Generation Podcast is created by Maddie Kramer. Produced by Pico Music, New York with Nicolai and Marco Toso. Stay tuned for the next episode to hear the story of Rachel Epstein. Contact us at the last generation pod@gmail.com if you have a story to share.

This is the Last Generation podcast, a podcast for the oldest and wisest to tell stories that live on.