Record Groups
Images
Metadata
Collection |
Ruth Marcus Papers |
Object Name |
Collection |
Catalog Number |
RG-52 |
Dates of Creation |
1943-2004 |
Extent of Description |
0.2 linear feet (1 box) |
Admin/Biographical History |
Ruth was born on May 19, 1915 in Strasburg, France to Samuel Wolf and Selma Benjamin. In 1918, her father decided to live in Germany after the Upper Silesia plebiscite. She married in 1938 and went to Brussels, Belgium in an illegal border crossing. May 10, 1940 in the early morning Germany invaded Belgium. Her husband went to work that morning and that was the last she saw of him for six years. She was three months pregnant. In 1940 she went to Marseilles, France and had no identification papers and did not wear the Jewish star. She rented a room with a friend by selling their jewelry. After German occupation her friend contacted the French underground and offered service. The underground insisted that to save Ruth's daughter, Yvonne, she should give her to a French family and a convent. Three weeks later she was arrested and sent to Rivesaltes. While in Rivesaltes, she helped the underground smuggle out children by placing them in potato sacks in wheelbarrows. She was eventually betrayed by a man whose son she was unable to smuggle out. She was beaten by the commandant. The underground pulled her out of the camp and she continued working with them until liberation in 1945. Ruth's parents and sister were killed in concentration camps. Her husband was in Portugal and did not think she had survived. He didn't know he had a daughter. Ruth was reunited with her daughter after the war on June 6, 1945. They came to the United States in 1946 via the Gaza, a Portuguese ship, from Lisbon to New York. She remarried after meeting an American Army veteran who'd served in France. |
Copyrights |
No restriction on use. |
Language of Material |
English and French. |
Scope & Content |
The Ruth Marcus Papers provide documentation of Ruth's work with the French Resistance during World War II. These papers include biographical materials, photographs, and documents showing Ruth's immigration to the United States with her daughter, Yvonne. Folder 1 contains donation materials for the collection, including a license to use digital copies of Ruth's photos. Folder 2 has biographical materials, including a eulogy written by Ruth's grandson, Keith. Folder 3 contains several of Ruth's personal documents, including a French identity card and her passport. The folder contains translations of the documents. Folders 4 and 5 hold old mounted exhibit panels and a script used in the museum gallery. Folder 6 contains several modern newspaper clippings, including Ruth's obituary and several Yom HaShoah accounts. Several memorial books on the town of Schwelm can be found in Folder 7 in both German and English. Finally, Folder 8 contains copies of photographs of Ruth and Yvonne. |
Subjects |
Strasburg, France Brussels, Belgium Avignon, France Rivesaltes Concentration Camp Papillion, France Perpignan, France French Underground Freedom Fighter Partisans New York, New York Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Bordeaux, France Lisbon, Portugal Schwelm, Germany Limoges, France |
Imagefile |
003\RG52.JPG |
Oral History |
Ruth Marcus |