Ruth Elias
Ruth Elias | |
|---|---|
| Born | Ruth Huppert 6 October 1922 |
| Died | 11 October 2008 (aged 86) |
Ruth Elias (née Huppert; 6 October 1922 – 11 October 2008) was a Jewish woman who was born Ruth Huppert in Moravian Ostrava on 6 October 1922.[1][2] Her parents were Friedrich (Fritz) Huppert and Malvina Ringer.[3] Elias had an older sister, Edith (b. 1920).[3] After the German annexation of Czechoslovakia, she was sent to the Theresienstadt ghetto where she married and became pregnant. She was transported to Auschwitz concentration camp, where she disguised her pregnancy and later selected for transfer to a labor camp in Hamburg, Germany where she was discovered to be pregnant. An SS doctor had her transferred to Ravensbrück concentration camp and then back to Auschwitz. When Dr. Josef Mengele discovered she was pregnant, he let her give birth just to see how long a baby could live without being fed. After a week, she injected her newborn baby girl with morphine which saved her life.
She subsequently went to Israel where she wrote a memoir, Triumph of Hope.[4][5] She died on 11 October 2008 at age 86 in Beit-Yitzhak-Sha'ar Hefer, Israel.[2]
Documentaries
- Heike Tauch: "Wann reden, wann schweigen. Ein Besuch bei Ruth und Kurt Elias in Beth Jitzchak" Deutschlandfunk 2007, 50 min
- Claude Lanzmann: Shoah: Four Sisters
References
- ^ "Ruth (Huppert) Elias", Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- ^ a b "Zemřela Ruth Elias". www.holocaust.cz (in Czech). 23 August 2011. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
- ^ a b "Ruth Elias - Theresienstadt, Auschwitz". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 21 February 2024. Retrieved 21 March 2025.
- ^ Leslie Katz (12 March 1999), "Survivor triumphs over Mengele to create life in Israel", j.
- ^ Leonard W. Boasberg (12 October 1998), "Ruth's Choice", The Philadelphia Inquirer, archived from the original on 16 April 2013
Further reading
- Ruth Elias (1999), Triumph of Hope: From Theresienstadt and Auschwitz to Israel, Wiley, ISBN 9780471350613