Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1938-1944 (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
1 file
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Ruth Balint (née Neumann) was born in Berlin in 1926. She was sent to school in Schöneiche, Brandenburg, where she was one of very few Jewish children. In 1938 she was sent to a Jewish school in Berlin. Shortly after her father's return from 3 months in a concentration camp, in the immediate aftermath of Kristallnacht, he wrote to a relative in Newcastle, Kurt Banski, a furniture maker, with regard to looking after Ruth. Ruth came to England circa July 1939 on the Kindertransport. She spent the following 5 years with an English Methodist family in Kendall, Lake District. She remained in contact with the family for the rest of their lives. Ruth died in 2000.
During the war years Ruth received the letters in this collection from her parents, who were eventually deported to Warsaw, then Treblinka in 1942 and grandparents to Theresienstadt in the same year. The only indication of concern about their predicament, which Ruth discerned in the letters after a re-reading of them many years later, was the occasional enquiry regarding news of relatives who had managed to flee to South America, and who had promised to help them also to emigrate.
Repository
Archival history
GB 1556 WL 1408 1938-1944 Collection level (fonds) 1 file Balint , Ruth , 1926-2000
Ruth Balint (née Neumann) was born in Berlin in 1926. She was sent to school in Schöneiche, Brandenburg, where she was one of very few Jewish children. In 1938 she was sent to a Jewish school in Berlin. Shortly after her father's return from 3 months in a concentration camp, in the immediate aftermath of Kristallnacht, he wrote to a relative in Newcastle, Kurt Banski, a furniture maker, with regard to looking after Ruth. Ruth came to England circa July 1939 on the Kindertransport. She spent the following 5 years with an English Methodist family in Kendall, Lake District. She remained in contact with the family for the rest of their lives. Ruth died in 2000.
During the war years Ruth received the letters in this collection from her parents, who were eventually deported to Warsaw, then Treblinka in 1942 and grandparents to Theresienstadt in the same year. The only indication of concern about their predicament, which Ruth discerned in the letters after a re-reading of them many years later, was the occasional enquiry regarding news of relatives who had managed to flee to South America, and who had promised to help them also to emigrate.
Received from the family
Papers of Ruth Balint, 1938-1944, comprising correspondence from her family, dealing in the main with family matters but also organisational arrangements for emigration from Nazi Germany and a number of poems by Ruth's father.
Chronological
Open
Copies can be made for personal use. Permission must be sought for publication.
German
Description exists to this archive on the Wiener Library's online catalogue www.wienerlibrary.co.uk
Balint, Ruth Es fällt mir schwer, mein Leben einfach so zu geniessen Unpublished memoir.
Entry compiled by Howard Falksohn
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.
March 2008 Balint , Ruth , 1926-2000 Berlin Emigration England Europe Germany Jews Literary forms and genres Literature Migrants Migration Nazism Poetry Political doctrines Refugees Religious groups Third Reich Totalitarianism UK Western Europe London
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Received from the family
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Papers of Ruth Balint, 1938-1944, comprising correspondence from her family, dealing in the main with family matters but also organisational arrangements for emigration from Nazi Germany and a number of poems by Ruth's father.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
Chronological
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Open
Conditions governing reproduction
Copies can be made for personal use. Permission must be sought for publication.
Language of material
- English
Script of material
- Latin
Language and script notes
German
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Balint, Ruth Es fällt mir schwer, mein Leben einfach so zu geniessen Unpublished memoir.
Finding aids
Description exists to this archive on the Wiener Library's online catalogue www.wienerlibrary.co.uk
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related units of description
Notes area
Alternative identifier(s)
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Subject access points
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Name access points
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Description control area
Description identifier
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Rules and/or conventions used
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.
Status
Level of detail
Dates of creation revision deletion
Language(s)
- English