Beige patch embroidered with Czechoslovakia owned by a Jewish refugee

Ruth Rappaport (1923-2010) was born in Leipzig, Germany to Chaja Helene Rubenstein (1885-1943) and Mendel Rappaport (1877-1944). Helene was born in Mielec, Poland. She had many relatives that immigrated to the United States and Australia, including her three brothers, an uncle, and a first cousin, also named Helene, who started a cosmetics company. Mendel was born in Rostoki, Romania (Roztoky, Ukraine). His family ran a lumber business, and Mendel moved to Leipzig to help expand the business. He left the lumber business to become a furrier. Mendel's first wife died in childbirth, prior to his marriage to Helene in 1910. He had three daughters from his first marriage, all of whom emigrated by 1939. The family attended the large modern Orthodox Brodyer synagogue and kept kosher. Ruth attended a private Jewish school run by Rabbi Carlebach and belonged to the Zionist youth group, Habonim. Mendel was a Zionist and wanted to go to Palestine, but Helene had family in Seattle, Washington, and wanted to go to America.

In 1933 anti-Jewish decrees were passed that restricted aspects of Jewish life. Ruth and her parents had Romanian passports, which did not state that they were Jewish, and they were not as restricted as other Jewish people. On November 8, 1938, their neighbors warned the family to stay inside the following day. Ruth decided to go out to see what was happening. She saw her synagogue on fire and Jewish property being destroyed during the November 9 - 10 Kristallnacht pogrom. Ruth told her parents what she saw, and soon after, the family left for Switzerland. After a short stay, Mendel and Helene decided to return home. Ruth did not want to return to Germany and jumped off the train just before it left the station. She became an au pair in Zurich for the Herzog family and attended daily English language classes. German laws forbid the export of currency, so Ruth’s parents sent large quantities of nail polish for her to sell for extra money.

Although Ruth carried a Romanian passport, she was born in Germany, and this made her eligible for immigration to the United States under the US quota for Germany. One of her maternal uncles, Carl, agreed to sponsor her visa application. Ruth’s parents were able to travel to Zurich and say goodbye before she left. On October 26, 1939, Ruth boarded the SS Veendam in Antwerp, Belgium and was met by her uncle in New York. Helene and Mendel purchased visas for Cuba and Carl had lawyers in Washington, DC working to get them US visas. However, once the US entered the war in December 1941, it became impossible for them to leave. Ruth later learned that Helene and Mendel had been deported to concentration camps. Her father was arrested on October 11, 1943, and hospitalized in Buchenwald, where he died of acute heart failure on January 13, 1944. Her mother was transported to Auschwitz and then to Buchenwald, where she was murdered in August 1943.

Ruth attended high school in Seattle, and then studied sociology, oriental studies, and library science at the University of Washington and the University of California, Berkeley. In February 1945, Ruth became a naturalized citizen. After graduation, she worked for a Jewish newspaper in Seattle and for the Zionist Emergency Council in San Francisco. On January 1, 1948, she went to Palestine as an advance person to prepare for a mission of wealthy San Francisco Jews. While she was there, the War of Independence began and she wrote news reports as a foreign correspondent and helped establish the Israeli National Photo Collection archives. After her return to the United States, she worked for the Department of Defense as a librarian, both overseas and in Washington, D.C.