Ruth"s Journey: A Survivor"s Memoir
"Honest and brave. A monument to the dead of Transnistria, to a black mark in history and to an enduring spirit."--Miami Herald "An excellent title for [young adults] interested in or required to read about the Holocaust."-- School Library Journal"Gripping, deeply involved reading. . . . [Throws] light on the much-neglected area of Transnistrian Jewry before and during the war."-- Jerusalem Post"An impressive document of human resilience, a luminous portrait of a never-embittered survivor, gifted with an exacting love for life and people."--Norman Manea, author of The Black Envelope"Ruth Gold proves that the heart broken into a thousand pieces can be broken yet more. . . . Read this book: it is filled with the stubborn light of the (barely describable) truth."--Andrei Codrescu, author of The Blood Countess"[Ruth Gold’s] loyalty to her origins and her desire to recount what it meant to survive those who sought to destroy them are the essence of her memoir."--Aharon Appelfeld, author of On to the Soul"On March 6, 1944, about two thousand orphans were rescued from Romanian concentration camps in Transnistria-Ukraine. I was one of them." So begins Ruth Gold’s memoir, a story that illuminates and transcends survival. In 1941, eleven-year-old Ruth had become a helpless witness to the agonizing death of her father, then of her only brother, and finally of her mother--all within three weeks. They perished in Bershad, the largest and most infamous of more than 100 concentration camps in Transnistria. Following her rescue, Ruth’s journey took her to Cyprus, Israel, Colombia, the United States, and finally back to visit her hometown, Czernowitz, and the camp at Bershad. Combining historical events with an intensely personal narrative of her life before, during, and after the Holocaust, Ruth Gold has created a memorial to the Jews of Transnistria. Moreover, the courageous spirit of her life, despite her shattering psychological and physical traumas, conveys a message to those who contemplate meaning in the Holocaust.Ruth Glasberg Gold, who was born in the province of Bukovina, Romania (now Ukraine), lives in Miami, Florida. She cofounded the American Branch of the Women"s International Zionist Organization (WIZO) in 1982 and in 1990 founded in Florida the first Child Survivors of the Holocaust support group. Retired from her long career as a registered nurse, she speaks frequently on the Holocaust and is a freelance interpreter in seven languages.