The late Ruth Gruber in photo taken in 2007. Photo courtesy of Lysanzia at English Wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
By MARILYN SHAPIRO
Ruth Gruber, American journalist, photographer, writer, humanitarian, and United States government official, is, I think, one of the most interesting persons who has ever lived.
Gruber was born in 1911 in Brooklyn, the fourth of five children of Russian-Jewish immigrants. She graduated from high school at 15 years old. After earning an undergraduate degree from New York University at 18, she won a fellowship at the University of Wisconsin, where she obtained a master’s degree in German and English literature. She subsequently received her doctorate from the University of Cologne in Germany at 21, making her at the time the youngest person with a doctorate.
After returning to the United States, Gruber became a correspondent for the New York Herald. The only reporter to be allowed to travel across the Soviet Arctic, she saw firsthand how people lived there and witnessed the Siberian Gulag.
Important Assignment
During World War II, she worked for the Department of the Interior where, as a special assistant to U.S. Secretary Harold L. Ickes, she became its field representative in Alaska. In June 1944, she was to undertake, what she later considered, “the most important assignment” of her life.
Reading the Washington Post at breakfast, Gruber, then 33, learned that President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) had signed an executive order allowing 1,000 refugees that had gathered in Italy, (90%of them Jewish), to be admitted to the United States. After years of this country’s refusing to allow Jews to escape the Nazi horrors of World War II and come here, this was (and would be) the only government authorized attempt to bring European Jews to America under the protection of the U.S.
Rejoicing that something was finally being done, Gruber rushed into her boss Ickes’ office to express her concern for the refugees’well-being.
“Mr. Secretary, these refugees are going to be terrified — traumatized,” Gruber recalled in a 2010 interview in the Sunday Telegraph of London. “Someone needs to fly over and hold their hand.”
“You’re right,” Ickes responded. “I’m going to send you.” The fact that she was young, Jewish, and could speak both German and Yiddish made her an ideal person for the job. Oswego was chosen as a location for their housing here, primarily because of the availability of Fort Ontario, a decommissioned military base, which was to be converted into a temporary refugee shelter.
After flying to Italy, Gruber boarded the Army troop transport USNS Henry Gibbins and greeted the refugees. “I would like … to know who you are, what kind of people you are. What you’ve gone through to survive,” she recounted in her 2000 book Haven: The Dramatic Story of 1,000 World War II Refugees and How They Came to America “You are the living witnesses.”
Witness Gruber
Throughout the two-week Atlantic crossing to the United States, Gruber proved to be a calming, empathetic listener and a communicator and advocate for the refugees who came from 18 countries. She intervened in disputes, taught English, cared for the seasick, and comforted the refugees, some who had miraculously escaped the Nazis and others who had spent time in concentration camps.
During the voyage, “Mother Ruth,” as she was often affectionately called, became a witness herself, listening to and writing down many of the refugees’ stories. “Get all the terror,” said Dr. Henry Macliach, a doctor from Yugoslavia. “We lived it. We will live with it for the rest of our lives. But you are the first one we can tell it to. Yes, write it down so the world will know.”
On Aug. 3, 1944, the ship arrived in New York City, and Gruber accompanied the refugees to Oswego. Initially, the site of the cold, desolate fort surrounded by barbed wire brought back memories and fears of what many had faced in Europe. Through Gruber’s guidance and the support of many others, including the residents of Oswego, government officials, and even Eleanor Roosevelt, the place became a “haven” from the ravages of war.
“Thus I became a witness and participant,” Gruber wrote. “I experienced their joys and pain, rejoicing in their marriages and love affairs, sharing pride in their children, mourning those who died by their own hand or by acts of God.”
Many Became Citizens
FDR’s initial executive order stated that the refugees were “guests” of the United States under the condition that they must return to their origin countries after the war. In late 1945, the U.S. government changed its mind. All who wished to stay were allowed to do so. The final chapter of Haven lists the successes of the new U.S. citizens, who would establish careers in many fields, including medicine, technology, education, law, business, and the arts.
New National Park?
In recent years, New York legislators in both the U.S. House and Senate have been working to designate Fort Ontario and its associated museum, Safe Haven, as a National Historical Park. In 2018, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) passed a bill directing the secretary of the interior to conduct a special resource study, the first step in the process to designate a site as a unit of the National Park System. In 2024, the SRS was finalized and concluded that the two-acre portion of Fort Ontario representing the fort’s use as a World-War II European refugee shelter meets all necessary criteria. The bill passed the Senate but failed to become law. In February 2025, Gillibrand, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), and Representative Claudia Tenney (R-NY) reintroduced the bipartisan bill.
“The Holocaust Refugee Shelter at Fort Ontario was a place of safety and hope during a dark moment in history, and it deserves recognition in the National Park System,” said Senator Gillibrand. “I am proud to once again be introducing this legislation to achieve this goal and am determined to work across the aisle to get it done.”
Gruber was profoundly impacted by her participation in the refugees’ “journey out of despair and death, to hope and life and light.” Although she was born a Jew, she reported that she became more of a Jew. “I knew my life would forever be inextricably interlocked with Jews,” she wrote in Haven. The rest of her life was a testament to that commitment.
Living The Story
After World War II, she witnessed the scene at the Port of Haifa where Jewish refugees on board the ship Exodus were not allowed to enter Palestine. She then followed them on their way to France and Germany. While on a ship off the coast of France, the refugees conducted a hunger strike. The only reporter allowed on the ship to report firsthand on the unfolding story was Gruber. Her book, Exodus 1947, became the basis for the Leon Uris novel and later the 1960 film based upon the novel. She later covered Israel’s war for independence, became friends with David Ben-Gurion, and conducted the first in-person interview with him when he became Israel’s first prime minister.
In 1951, Gruber married. She had two children as she continued her journalistic endeavors. In 1985, at 74 years old, she visited Jewish villages in Ethiopia and chronicled the rescue of the Ethiopian Jews and how they were brought to Israel. Throughout her life, she chronicled her adventures through her photography, articles, and 18 books. Gruber died at 105 on Nov. 17, 2016.
“I had two tools to fight injustice — words and images, my typewriter and my camera,” she was quoted in her New York Times obituary. “I just felt that I had to fight evil, and I’ve felt like that since I was 20 years old. And I’ve never been an observer. I have to live a story to write it.”
Marilyn Shapiro, formerly of Clifton Park, is now a resident of Kissimmee, Fla. Keep Calm and Bake Challah: How I Survived the Pandemic, Politics, Pratfalls, and Other of Life’s Problems is the newest addition to her books. It joins Tikkun Olam, There Goes My Heart and Fradel’s Story, a compilation of stories by her mother that she edited. Shapiro’s blog is theregoesmyheart.me.
