This photograph forms part of the Ruth David Collection. It is from a collection of almost fifty photographs depicting Ruth's family over an extended period of time, from long before Ruth's birth in the late 1920s, through to the 1940s. Ruth's family were Jewish and lived in Germany.

This is a photograph of Ruth's eldest brother Ernst. Ernst was the son of Ruth's father, Moritz, and his first wife Klara. Moritz had been left with three young children after Klara died due to a failed operation in the early ninteen twenties. Ruth's father remarried and wed Margarete, Ruth's mother. Ernst was the oldest son and so had intended to train for running their father's business, once it became clear that this was no longer possible due to Nazism he gained a visa to leave for the United States. Before he left Ernst had been arrested during the 1938 November Pogrom and taken to Buchenwald Concentration Camp, being released after two weeks on the condition that he leave the country for the United States within twenty-four hours. His American visa had been found on his arrest. Once America entered the Second World War Ernst joined the army and came to visit Ruth at Lake Windermere, England while he was serving in Europe. This photograph was taken during Ernt's visit, in 1944, by which time Ruth had come to England on the Kindertransport, which saved her life. Ruth remembers feeling overjoyed at this visit from her brother, who she had not seen since his release from Buchenwald in 1938. Ernst took part in the Battle of the Bulge, in Belgium, and survived the War.

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Ruth David was born Ruth Luise Oppenheimer in March 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany. Ruth grew up in Fränkisch-Crumbach in Germany in a full and busy household with many siblings. Anti Jewish persecution escalated as the Nazis took hold of Germany, and this resulted in Ruth's parents seeking refuge for their daughter and their other children. Ruth came to England on the Kindertransport in 1939 - she never saw her parents again as they were murdered by the Nazi regime. 

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Why is this choice by parents seen as an act of resistance by many?

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Learn more about Ruth David

See more of Ruth's photographs

Learn more about the November Pogrom (Kristallnacht)

Learn more about the Kindertransport

Learn more about Buchenwald

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