Nothing Could Stop Her: The Courageous Life of Ruth Gruber
Chapter 1 Brooklyn Ruth Gruber was born in 1911 in what she called a shtetl a village the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn New York Her parents David and Gussie were from Russia Ruth was the fourth of their five children She had two older brothers Bob and Harry and an older sister Betty Her youngest brother Irving was born in 1916 when Ruth was five and a half years old The family lived in a small apartment above the liquor store that her father owned Ruth was a curious child who wanted to learn as much as possible about everything she saw and heard She would sit on the curb watching tired horses pull wagons filled with fruit and vegetables She'd listen to the calls of street peddlers Every day a tall man carried blocks of ice in huge iron claws up the stairs for the icebox in the Grubers apartment On his way down he would give little Ruth a piece of ice which she sucked as she watched the people on Moore Street go about their business NOTHING COULD STOP HER 8
9 CE LIQUOR STORE Because everyone she knew was Jewish Ruth thought the whole world was Jewish Moore Street smelled of briny pickles in big barrels roasted sweet potatoes and candy apples People greeted each other in Yiddish Ruth loved Fridays when the house smelled of freshly baked challah and almond cookies At dusk her mother lit the Shabbos candles and the family gathered around the dinner table On Saturdays the street was quiet no horses or peddlers Most stores BROOKLYN
Yiddish Yiddish is the language of Ashkenazi Eastern and Central European Jews It is written in the Hebrew alphabet and uses some Hebrew words But it is also closely related to German It originated in Europe in the area that today is Germany around the tenth century Eventually it became the main language of Jews living in Poland Russia and many other European countries About 11 million people spoke the language before the Holocaust wiped out large populations of Yiddish speakers in the 1930s and 1940s The language lives on though with about 600,000 Yiddish speakers worldwide There are Yiddish theater companies Yiddish musical groups and even board games in Yiddish were closed but Ruth's parents kept theirs open They only closed their store for certain important Jewish holidays Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur and the first day of Passover Every Saturday Ruth's grandfather Zayda Gruber would take her to shul synagogue She'd sit with him downstairs because although men and women sat separately young girls could sit with the men Ruth loved chanting the Hebrew prayers even though she didn't understand the language In those days only boys attended Hebrew school After shul her mother served a lunch of gefilte fish chicken soup and boiled chicken Then Ruth and her sister Betty who was two years older would walk six blocks to visit their mother's parents Their grandmother Baba Rockower fed them pastries talked about her life in Russia and read them articles from the Yiddish newspaper NOTHING COULD STOP HER 10
On the Jewish holidays when the store was closed the whole family went to shul On these days Ruth and Betty sat upstairs with their mother and the other women while their father and brothers were downstairs with the men Ruth wished she could be with the men like she was on Saturdays Ruth adored her father David Gruber was six feet tall with a red mustache gray green eyes and a soft voice that he never raised Ruth's mother Gussie ruled the family She had never finished school but was smart and taught her children the value of hard work Ruth's first lessons in helping others came from her father Once a month he sent money to relatives in Poland and Russia And every spring he asked his children for the clothes they weren't wearing so he could send them to Europe If Ruth didn't want to part with a dress or coat he would say Send it They need it more than you Ruth's world opened up when she entered public school Her first grade teacher was a young Black woman who taught a class of Jewish Irish Polish and Black girls Coney Island Adventures In the summers Gussie would pack a picnic basket gather her five children and assorted neighborhood kids and take them on the trolley to the beach at Coney Island There she would spread a blanket and rest while the children splashed in the surf Ruth loved those days at the ocean and loved her mother for giving them to her 11 BROOKLYN
