[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 29 (Tuesday, March 1, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E388]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


IN RECOGNITION OF THE MANY ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF RUTH GRUBER, AN AMERICAN 
           JOURNALIST, PHOTOGRAPHER, WRITER AND HUMANITARIAN

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. CAROLYN B. MALONEY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, March 1, 2011

  Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to Ruth Gruber, an 
extraordinary woman whose life's work has made her an icon and a role 
model. Over the course of her long and active life, she has been a 
ground-breaking journalist and photographer, a brilliant scholar, an 
exceptional writer and a compassionate government official. Most of 
all, she is a humanitarian whose leadership and intellect helped save 
thousands of lives.
  Ms. Gruber received the American Spirit Award from The Common Good 
(TCG) on February 3, 2011. In addition, TCG will be screening Ahead of 
Time, a 2009 documentary about Ms. Gruber's life. Under the leadership 
of the dynamic Patricia Duff, TCG is a non-profit, non-partisan 
organization that strives to inspire broad participation in our 
democracy through the free exchange of ideas and civil dialogue.
  Born in Brooklyn in 1911, Ruth Gruber studied at the University of 
Cologne in Germany where, at the age of twenty, she received her Ph.D. 
Her dissertation on Virginia Woolf made her the youngest Ph.D. in the 
world, earning her international headlines and a movie star's welcome 
when she returned to the United States.
  Ms. Gruber returned to the United States where she became a 
journalist. In 1935, she won a fellowship to write a study of women 
under fascism, communism, and democracy. The first journalist to enter 
the Soviet Arctic, she published her experiences in the book, I Went to 
the Soviet Arctic. In 1941, after reading her book, Secretary of the 
Interior Harold L. Ickes sent Ms. Gruber as his field representative to 
make a social and economic study of Alaska. Her reports were forwarded 
to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and played a major role in shaping 
American policies in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, which were then 
on the frontlines of World War II. Among other things, her reports 
documented the strong work ethic of African-American soldiers.
  When Ms. Gruber returned to Washington, Ickes appointed her his 
special assistant, a position she held for five years. When President 
Roosevelt decided to accept a thousand European immigrants in the midst 
of World War II and the Holocaust, Secretary Harold Ickes asked her to 
escort the refugees to the United States. Largely but not entirely 
Jewish, the 984 refugees who were chosen to make the journey came from 
all over Europe. The refugees were permitted into the country with the 
idea that they would return home following the war's end. Following 
their arrival in New York harbor on August 3, 1944, they were kept 
segregated on an old army base in Oswego, New York. Ms. Gruber served 
as their liaison with the outside world. When the end of the war came, 
Ms. Gruber lobbied the President and Congress, with the help of 
Catholic, Jewish and Protestant clergy and other advocates, and 
convinced them to allow the refugees to stay in America.
  Following the war, Ms. Gruber became a foreign correspondent for the 
Herald Tribune. In 1947, the New York Post asked her to cover the 
Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine, which was formed to 
consider what to do with the Jewish Holocaust survivors who could not 
return home. She traveled to the displaced persons camps, covered the 
Nuremberg trials, and met with Zionist leaders in the Middle East. In 
1947, while covering the Middle East for the Herald Tribune, she 
learned of the British refusal to allow the Exodus, a former cruise 
ship crammed with 4,500 refugees, to land in Haifa. The British loaded 
the survivors onto several boats and sent them first to Marseilles and 
then to Germany. Ms. Gruber was permitted to travel with the refugees 
from Marseilles to Germany as the pool reporter. Her dispatches, later 
collected in the book, Exodus 1947: The Ship That Launched a Nation, 
introduced the world to desperation and determination of the survivors. 
Her iconic photograph of refugees on board the ship under a flag 
bearing the British Union Jack overlaid with a Nazi swastika became 
Life Magazine's photo of the week and was reproduced around the world.
  Ms. Gruber continued to work as a foreign correspondent until 1966, 
and has continued to write books up to the present day. In 1985, Ms. 
Gruber witnessed another exodus--she traveled to isolated Jewish 
villages to aid in the rescue of the Ethiopian Jews. She chronicled her 
experiences in Rescue: The Exodus of the Ethiopian Jews. In 1998, she 
received a Lifetime Achievement Award from her peers in the American 
Society of Journalists and Authors as ``a pioneering journalist and 
author whose books chronicle the most important events of the twentieth 
century.'' When asked the secret of her success, she said: ``Have 
dreams, have visions and let no obstacle stop you.''
  Ms. Gruber was married twice, first to Philip H. Michaels and, after 
his death, to Henry Rosner. In 1952, at age forty-one, she gave birth 
to her first child, Celia; her son, David, was born in 1954.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my distinguished colleagues to join me in 
recognizing the remarkable career and achievements of Ruth Gruber, an 
indefatigable journalist, activist and humanitarian.

                          ____________________