Ruth Schwiening

Interview Summary

Ruth was born Ruth Auerbach in May 1935 in Breslau [present-day Wrocław, Poland] to assimilated Jewish parents Lothar and Hilde Auerbach née Ring. Her father studied agriculture in Breslau where he met Ruth’s mother, who was an accountant.

Together they followed their dream and set up a farm in Esdorf/ Silesia  present-day Osolin, Poland] where he trained young people for Haksharah (agricultural training in preparation for emigrating to Palestine). In 1936 he was no longer allowed to run the farm and left for Austria where they set up another farm in Schaßbach, near Klagenfurt.

The November Pogrom in 1938 upended their life again; Ruth’s father was taken first to a prison in Klagenfurt and then to Dachau concentration camp for six weeks. In his absence, her mother with the help of neighbours managed to leave the farm and get to Berlin where she had contacts. A Jewish organisation offered to help one of the three children to be taken to a Jewish orphanage in Berlin and then on a Kindertransport to England. They chose Ruth, as it was felt it was easier to find a foster place for a girl. Ruth left on 3 February on a Kindertransport for England. Ruth was fostered by the very caring Hart family in Sydenham until March 1940 when her mother came to get her. The foster family was surprised as they had hoped to adopt Ruth. Ruth’s father had also made it to England on an agricultural visa through the help of Frank Foley of the British Embassy. The family was now reunited and settled in a small flat in Nuneaton where her mother worked in the gasworks and her father later as a farm labourer. Ruth remembers poverty, feeling like an outsider suffering anti-German sentiment. Her father stood out with his strong accent and was eventually interned on the Isle of Man. Her mother was traumatised by her experiences in Germany.

Her father never talked about his experiences and the family didn’t mention that they were Jewish as there were no other Jewish families in the area. He warned Ruth against exhibiting her art depicting Jewish themes for fear of discrimination. After the war, they learnt that both grandmothers and an aunt had died in Theresienstadt. The parents received restitution for the farm in Austria and were able to pay for the children’s studies. Ruth studied history, education, geology and German at Keele University. Her mother, who never wanted to return to Germany, encouraged Ruth to spend a year abroad in Berlin to learn German in Berlin where she met Jürgen Schwiening. They got married in 1961. Ruth and Jürgen both worked as teachers in the UK and also taught in Germany.

Later in life Ruth got a degree in art and exhibited her artwork showing how she dealt with her experiences as a survivor and refugee but also telling her parents’ story. Ruth speaks with her husband Jürgen in schools about the Holocaust and is involved in charities helping refugees.

Ruth and Jürgen have three children and her oldest daughter Erica joins Ruth to talk about her experiences growing up as the child of a Jewish refugee and a German immigrant in the English countryside and her strong feeling of her German identity. Jürgen, Ruth’s husband, also joins the conversation and talks about the challenges of a marriage between a non-Jewish German like himself and a Jewish refugee.

Key words: Breslau. Auerbach. Haksharah. Esdorf/ Osolin. Schaßbach, Austria. Berlin orphanage. Kindertransport. Frank Foley. Nuneaton. Coventry synagogue. Keele University. Beth Shalom. Safe Passage. Language school – Beech House.