Ruth Eldar was born Ruth Rutka Berlinska on February 18, 1928 in Łódź, Poland. Ruth’s older brother, Salek, was born August 15, 1926. Their father, Izydor Berlinski, worked for his father-in-law and later became a partner in his luxury foods wholesale business. Izydor Berlinski was born in 1899, served in the Polish Army, was a Polish patriot, and was Jewish. In 1925, Izydor married Roza Ruchla Fajtlowicz who came from a prominent Łódź family. Rose’s grandfather, Izrael Fajtlowicz, was one of the founders of the Jewish community and its offices in Łódź.
The Berlinski family resided at 37a 11-go Listopada Street in Łódź. Salek attended Kacenelson Gymnasium, and Ruth went to a Polish public school.
In September 1939 Izydor Berlinski was mobilized into the Polish Army. During this time, his family only had sporadic communication with him via the Red Cross. In May 1940, he returned from a POW camp and went directly into the sealed ghetto in Łódź.
In September 1939 Roza Berlinski and her two children moved in with her mother at 4 Plac Koscielny, a building that was designated to be inside the ghetto. The Fajtlowicz family lived on the third floor; on the first floor there was a German police station and later a Wehrmacht headquarters. Rutka, her brother, and her parents lived in one room with her grandparents and an uncle and his wife. The other rooms of the apartment were occupied by other families.
Izydor Berlinski owned a small plot of land in Marysin, Poland, where he planted potatoes and other vegetables which kept his family from going hungry while they were in the ghetto. Some time later he got a job in the food distribution department of the ghetto’s Jewish administration.
Rutka went to school in the ghetto; at first her school was located on Franciszkanska Street and later it was moved to Marysin. Her homeroom teacher was Miss. Lena Kagan who taught mathematics. In June 1941 Rutka graduated from the 6th grade: class Vlb in school number 25. All the schools closed in September 1941, on order of the German administration, when almost 20,000 Jews from Berlin, Vienna, Prague, and Luxemburg were brought into the Łódź ghetto and housed in the schools.
After the schools closed, the ghetto children became laborers. Rutka was employed in “Wasche und Kleider Abtailung” (a sewing and dressmaking factory) which was managed by Leon Glaser. Employment in a ghetto workshop meant an addition piece of bread and a bowl of soup. Rutka brought home her bowl of soup, which together with her mother’s soup and a few potato peels, served as the family’s meal.
Most workshops organized small schools for their under-aged laborers where they were taught the professional skills of the workshop and a few theoretical subjects. Mrs. Maryla Kujawska was in charge of the eleven children in the Wasche und Kleider Abtailung school, and Yehuda Widawski taught the children how to produce dress collars. For extracurricular activities, the children produced and performed plays and recited poems they had written. Rutka’s older brother, Salek, the only boy in the group, wrote a poem about his mother’s desperation.
Rutka’s maternal uncle, Leon Fajtlowicz, was in charge of all the workshops which produced leather items. Her paternal grandfather stayed hidden in a basement for three years. He continued to pray, study, and abstain from the horsemeat that was sometimes available to the inhabitants of the ghetto.
On August 24, 1944, Rutka, her parents, and her brother were deported to Auschwtiz-Birkenau concentration camp. She was immediately separated from her family and survived a bout of typhus. In the fall of 1944, Rutka was transferred to Halbstadt labor camp where she worked in the Massap ammunition factory. In May 1945 Halbstadt was liberated by the Soviet Army. Her brother, Salek, did not survive a death march. Rutka returned to her hometown and discovered that her uncle, Leon Fatjlowicz, his wife, Cesia, and Rutka’s grandmother, Estera Fajtlowicz, were alive. They stayed in the Łódź ghetto after the liquidation and were liberated in January 1945 by the Soviet Army. Rutka’s grandfather, Izrael Fajtlowicz, died in January 1945.
In 1945, in Łódź, Rutka met Jozef Englender, a musician, who had survived the war in the Soviet Union. In 1946, Rutka traveled to Paris, France, and the two reunited and married in 1948. Rutka studied in the Academy of Fashion Design. They immigrated to Israel in 1950. Their daughter, Anat, was born in 1958.
