Overview
- Brief Narrative
- Hanukiah that belonged to Ruth Spier’s husband Alfred and was carried by his family when they emigrated from Germany in March 1939, to escape persecution. The Hanukiah is lit during the festival of Hanukkah. It has eight candles in line with each other with a ninth candle at a different height that is lit first and then used to light the others. Ruth and her husband Alfred lived in Hannover, Germany, where he taught at a Jewish school. Alfred unexpectedly died of a fever in 1937, leaving behind two young daughters, Elizabeth and Hannah, and Ruth a widow. As part of Kristallnacht, on November 10, 1938, Ruth’s father and brother were arrested by the Gestapo and transported to Buchenwald concentration camp. They were released 6 weeks later. With the increasing violence, Ruth and her brother decided it would be best to leave Germany. In March 1939, they secured passage for their families to Ecuador. By this time, anti-Semitic legislation required Jews to relinquish their valuables to the state. Ruth defied this decree and risked her life by sewing her remaining valuables into the lining of the clothing and linens she was permitted to take with her to Ecuador. Ruth and her daughters spent 1 year in Ecuador and then immigrated to the United States in May 1940, where they settled in New York.
- Date
-
acquired:
1937
- Geography
-
acquired:
Wolfenbüttel (Germany)
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Walter and Hannah Hess
- Contributor
-
Subject:
Ruth Spier
Original owner: Alfred Spier
- Biography
-
Ruth Spier (née Steinberg, 1903-1981) was born in Peckelshiem, Germany, to Siegfried (1874-1945) and Fanny (née Gruenwald) Steinberg. Ruth had one younger brother, Ernest Steinberg (1906-1984). Her father, Siegfried, was a teacher at the local Jewish school and was cantor and leader of the congregation. In 1915, he accepted a new teaching position and the family moved to Wolfenbüttel. Ruth finished school and went to work for a family to learn domestic work and sewing. Ruth’s family lived modestly and her mother was very devout.
Ruth met Alfred Spier (1900-1937) who was studying to be a teacher and worked at the Jewish school where Ruth's father taught. Alfred grew up on a farm in Zwesten (Hessen) where his father was the local shochet (kosher slaughterer). The two married in 1928, and settled in Frankfurt am Main, where Alfred found a position as a teacher. A year later, they moved to Hannover, where they had two daughters, Elisabeth (1930-2015) and Hannah (b.1934). On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. Anti-Jewish decrees were passed that restricted every aspect of Jewish life. Alfred was a Zionist, and with growing anti-Semitism in Germany, was hoping to immigrate with his family to Palestine. However, in July 1937, while visiting his family on their farm, Alfred fell ill with a fever and died.
As part of Kristallnacht, on November 10, 1938, Ruth’s father and brother were arrested by the Gestapo and transported to Buchenwald concentration camp. They were released 6 weeks later. With the increasing violence, Ruth and her brother decided the best plan was to try to leave Germany as soon as possible. Jewish emigration experienced a dramatic rise and it became increasingly difficult to obtain entry visas to other countries. Ruth, her daughters, her brother Ernest, and his wife and son were finally able to obtain entry and passage to Ecuador. Their mother, Fanny, was ill and unable to travel so she and Siegfried stayed behind in Germany.
By this time, anti-Semitic legislation required Jews to relinquish all their precious metals and stones to the state. Ruth defied this decree and risked her life by sewing her remaining valuables into the lining of the clothing and linens she was permitted to take with her to Ecuador. In March 1939, Ruth and her two daughters took a train to the Netherlands to visit family before they departed. They met up with her brother and his family and the two families boarded the Caribia to Panama and then the Santa Clara to Guayaquil, Ecuador. Ruth and her daughters remained in Ecuador for one year, before being permitted to immigrate to the United States. In May 1940, they boarded the SS Santa Lucia for New York. Ruth discovered that her mother had died of cancer and her father had been deported to the Warsaw Ghetto. She received a final card from her father in December 1942, and he was declared dead on May 8, 1945. Ruth and her daughters settled in Washington Heights, New York, where some of their relatives and friends already lived. Shortly after, her brother Ernest and his family immigrated to New York as well. She found work in the garment industry and was able to support her family. Ruth died of cancer on April 26, 1981.
Physical Details
- Classification
-
Jewish Art and Symbolism
- Category
-
Jewish ceremonial objects
- Object Type
-
Hanukkah lamp (lcsh)
- Genre/Form
- Menorahs. Religious articles.
- Physical Description
- (a) Small brass candelabrum with a stepped hexagonal base that features a starburst pattern and stippled texture. A flat metal stem is attached with a square metal nut to the base from underneath. The lower part of the stem is decorated with zig-zag patterning below two horizontal bands. Lower arched and upper straight branches extend from the central portion of the stem. Running vertically between the branches on each side are four bronze colored, rimmed cups attached to flat, tapered metal stems decorated with an engraved chevron pattern. In the center of the stem is a metal loop that extends forward to hold a removable cup (b). The central stem tapers upward to a flat knob upon which rests a Star of David with an open center. The stem is bent causing the lamp to lean significantly to one side, and there are remnants of wax on the cups and stem.
(b) Removable cup used as an attendant on hanukiah (a) with bronze colored, rimmed cup attached to a flat tapered metal stem with a decorative engraved chevron pattern. An arched piece of metal culminating in a round peg extends perpendicularly from the center of one side and rests in a corresponding hole on the hanukiah. - Dimensions
- a: Height: 8.250 inches (20.955 cm) | Width: 7.000 inches (17.78 cm) | Depth: 3.375 inches (8.573 cm)
b: Height: 2.125 inches (5.398 cm) | Width: 1.000 inches (2.54 cm) - Materials
- a : brass
b : brass
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- No restrictions on access
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The Hanukiah was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2016 by Walter and Hannah Spier Hess.
- Record last modified:
- 2022-07-28 18:15:09
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn555474
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Also in Hess, Spier and Steinberg family collection
The collection consists of two typescript memoirs, photographs, and Hanukiah relating to the experiences of Walter Hess and Hannah Spier Hess and her family in Germany, Ecuador and the United States before, during, and after the Holocaust.
Date: 1900-2010
Hess and Spier families papers
Document
The Hess and Spier families papers consist of two typescript memoirs: "Refugee's Journey: A Memoir" (365 pages), by Walter Hess, and "An Extraordinary Woman," by Hannah S. Hess (421 pages, undated, circa 2007), as well as pre-war photographs of the family of Hannah Spier Hess, taken in Germany. The memoir of Hannah Hess focuses on the life of her mother, Ruth, describing her childhood in Wolfenbüttel, Germany, the history of her parents, Siegfried and Fanni Steinberg, her marriage to Alfred Spier, the birth and childhood of their two daughters, her immigration to the United States with her daughters following her husband's death, and their life in New York, primarily in Washington Heights, from the 1940s through the end of Ruth's life. The memoir of Walter Hess focuses largely on his childhood in Ruppichteroth, Germany, describing their farming life, his dawning awareness of anti-semitism toward the late 1930s, the imposition of anti-Jewish measures in his town, his family's eventual emigration from Germany by way of Holland, their arrival in Ecuador in 1939, and later immigration to the United States, his childhood and adolescence in New York, and his induction into the U.S. Army, including his deployment to Germany and return to his hometown in 1953.