Ruth Oppenheim memoirs

Ruth Heimann Oppenheim was born in 1927 in Werne, Germany to Albert and Rosa Heimann. She had three siblings: Julia, Hannah, and Herbert. Her family was one of only several Jewish families in the community, and owned a prosperous butcher shop and sausage factory. During the Kristallnacht, Albert plead with the mob to take him but spare his family, and he was taken to the marketplace and beaten. After that event, the family attempted to immigrate to the United States. Ruth’s Uncle Ernst, Aunt Berta, and cousin Helmut had received affidavits first, but the consul declared Ernst unfit due to a knee injury he had suffered years before. The Heimann family meanwhile received affidavits, but required more for their larger family. Ernst and Berta gave up theirs so the Heimann family could travel. Julia and Albert immigrated in 1939, and the rest of the family joined them in the United States in 1940. Ernst, Berta, Helmut were transported to Izbica in 1941, where they were killed.