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Recollections of Ruth July 19, 2008

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Barry Clayton, London, England

I first met Ruth in the ‘60s in Warsaw. The crisscrossing jumble of our lives brought us together in adjacent offices in the English Section of Polish Radio. She had arrived in Poland from the McCarthyism which was America from the mid-‘50s onwards: “Are you now — or have you ever been….?” I was an actor who wanted to be a film director. Working in radio was a stepping stone — or at least so I hoped. Ruth seemed a rather somber woman who had lived through a lot in America. Finding sanctuary in Poland was not easy for her. She found the local language difficult to get to grips with and some of the customs seemed strange to her. As a left-wing American she had not expected the Catholic Church to have such power and influence in what was supposed to be a communist country. Ruth’s own family had been forced to leave Poland during the czarist pogroms. Whilst she seemed to appreciate the irony of her returning to Eastern Europe, her situation made her somewhat prickly. I think she was haunted by ghosts from her own family’s past and memories of the victims of fascism in Poland during the Second World War. Even though a stranger in a strange land, she decided to make of her situation the best she could. And to a certain extent she succeeded.

Toward the end of the ‘60s, with many other Jewish people who were forced to leave the country, Ruth became another victim — this time of Polish anti-Semitism. Old myths, fears, and hatreds die hard, now as then.

Ruth spent a few years in Denmark. Then the opportunity arose for her to return to the United States, where she met Ira. With him she found the happiness she had always sought … though as usual it was a rather muted happiness, but very real. I’m sure we will all remember her with great warmth.

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