September 30: Ruth Gruber

Journalist and photographer Ruth Gruber, who began publishing her work in 1932 and is still being published today, was born in Brooklyn on this date in 1911. In 1932, she became the youngest person in the world to earn a Ph.D. after one year at the University of Cologne. Shortly after, she was witnessing Nazi rallies, and returned to the U.S. to write about the dangers of Nazism. During World War II, Gruber was special assistant to Interior Secretary Harold Ickes and was given a secret European mission to bring one thousand Jewish refugees and wounded American soldiers from Italy to Oswego, New York. Gruber also documented the Exodus 1947 entering Haifa Harbor in an attempt to deliver 4,500 Jewish refugees to Palestine. In a 1985 book, she chronicled Israel’s rescue of Ethiopian Jews. Subjects of her other books include the USSR, Virginia Woolf (with whom she had a close friendship), revolutionary Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Israel at various stages of its evolution. The National Coalition Against Censorship honored her in 2008, and a documentary film about her early career, Ahead of Time, premiered in 2010.

“You are the first witnesses coming to America. Through you, America will learn the truth of Hitler’s crimes.”—Ruth Gruber, to refugees she brought to Oswego

Watch a ShalomTV profile of Ruth Gruber at 97: