Ruth Hamburger

Born on November 11, 1906 in Görlitz, she grew up as the daughter of factory owner Ernst Hamburger and his wife Clara Zipora. Ruth had two brothers, Fritz and Rudolph. Her father died early and her older brother Fritz fell in the First World War in 1914. From then on, Ruth lived with her niece Eva, Fritz's daughter, whose mother was not a teenager. In 1930, the family moved to Fürstenberg/Havel, where Ruth's mother bought a villa and converted it into a guesthouse. Ruth and her niece Eva lived there and most of the guests were young. Ruth learned the profession of a baby nurse and worked for a doctor in the community. In 1931, she took in the abandoned foster child Edith Stock, called Ditha. But in 1935, due to the Nuremberg laws, she had to give up the "Aryan" child again. The situation worsened in 1935 when only three Jewish residents remained in Fürstenberg: Ruth, her mother Clara and the music teacher Toni Richter. During the Reichspogromnacht in 1938, the windows of the guesthouse were smashed and the residents threatened. In 1939, Ruth, her mother and Eva fled to Hamburg, where they hoped for anonymity and protection. In 1940, Ruth married Ernst Weigert, who was able to flee to America in time. On December 6, 1941, Ruth Weigert was on a deportation list to Riga. She tried to flee to Switzerland with her mother, but was caught and sent back. Ruth was imprisoned in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp and took her own life on July 11, 1942, shortly before she was to be deported to Auschwitz, in order to escape her fate. Her mother was deported to Auschwitz and murdered there. Ruth's brother Rudolph and her niece Eva survived the Shoah and the villa and boarding house where Ruth and her family lived were demolished in 2005. On December 1, 2012, the first Stumbling Stone was laid in Fürstenberg in memory of Ruth Hamburger. Ruth's former foster child Ditha took part in the laying of the stumbling stone.