Ruth Michaels

"I was born in 1924 in Vienna, Austria.

"I can describe my parents best as 'poor intelligentsia' class. My dad was also born in Vienna. He was a lawyer but was more involved in writing about Jewish history and in his political activities than in his profession. My mother came from Vilna, Poland, the 'Jerusalem of Lithuania'. She was a teacher at one of the Yiddish schools of the ORT and had come with other teachers to Vienna University to take courses. Neither of my parents cared very much about making a lot of money.

"During childhood, my mother and I spent most of the years in Vilna with her 'tribe'. My dad, when he visited Vilna, became enamored with the Yiddish language and learned and spoke a beautiful literary Yiddish. I, an only child, thrived surrounded by my grandparents and numerous cousins, uncles and aunts. All but two of them were murdered by the Nazis in the Ponar woods close to Vilna.

"The Nazis came to Vienna in March 1938 and it became very quickly intolerable for Jews. I would not want to ever relive 1938 again. My small family was fortunate. My dad had been active in the 'YIVO', the Yiddish Scientific Institute, which assembled a group of wealthy members in order to save Yiddish scholars. This man whom we did not know immediately sent us an affidavit and purchased for us boat tickets to New York. We were able to leave in December of 1938.

"A few months later the Nazis closed all the borders and no one could get away any more. My mother unfortunately died of breast cancer at 46, a year and a half after we arrived in New York City. She had noticed the breast lump in March of 1938 but did not tell anyone, as it would have postponed our departure.

"Immediately upon our arrival in New York, my dad was sent on a lecture tour and nothing was done about her condition until he returned almost a year later. It was too late to possibly save her life. My dad, on the other hand, was able to live a healthy and productive life until the day he died at 86 of a heart attack.

"Ever since the Holocaust days, I have never again taken my being alive for granted. In fact, not having been murdered in my teens as almost all my cousins were, I was sure that I would die of breast cancer at 46, just like my mother. And here I am at 79, reasonably healthy and able to enjoy life! And in this beautiful, interesting place like Berkeley, California, the best place in the US for me! I am so grateful, and at the same time I feel guilty- how come I am so lucky?!

"Having lost most of my family, it was essential to me to create a family of my own, and I did. It happens to be a multi-ethnic one. My first husband and I had two sons and then adopted a Korean-Caucasian daughter. Her son (my grandson) has an African-American father. My younger son and his wife adopted a Filipino-Caucasian son. My son's wife was Catholic and converted to Judaism. My oldest son who lives close to me has two daughters. His wife who was Protestant also converted to Judaism. This diversity has been a most enriching experience for all of us.

"I am a research scientist (microbiology and biochemistry) with an advanced degree. This came about quite accidentally. Since the Nazi days, I had belonged to a labor Zionist group that was of the utmost importance to me during those hard times. I had wanted to live in a Kibbutz in Israel, not in the U.S., and had wanted to go to 'Farm School' after high school like some of my friends did. However, I could not leave New York City because my dad was alone. So, with nobody to advise me otherwise, I thought that the closest subject to agriculture would be botany. Fortunately, I liked science and was good at it, and I enjoyed my accidental profession until I retired.

"The existence of the state of Israel has been essential to me since the Holocaust. I have been a member of Women in Black for many years now and a member of various groups for peace and social justice all over the world. My participation in marches and vigils has been curtailed because my energy has declined, but I do whatever I can using phone calls and emails."


JFCS/East Bay contingent at the 10th Anniversary of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; survivor Ruth Michaels on far right.