An apple.
A child trying to grab an apple from a tree.
That is all it took for young Ruth Goldschmiedova to be locked up for 24 hours in solitary confinement when she was in a Nazi concentration camp. That was nothing, she said. At least she survived. More than 6 million were not as fortunate.
Chula Vista’s Civic Library is hosting a year-long exhibit with stories of Holocaust survivors who —just like Ruth Goldschmiedova Sax— decided to settle down in the South County. “RUTH: Remember Us The Holocaust” is a stunning exhibit that honors the legacy of the survivors and shares their stories with subsequent generations.
Sax’s daughter Sandra Scheller is the exhibit’s curator. She chose to focus the exhibit on survivors who migrated to Chula Vista after World War II.
Scheller collected artifacts from her mother before she died in December. She set out to find photos and artifacts from other local Holocaust survivors and their families. Her stated goal was to include as many people as she could find and make their voices heard.
Scheller said hearing survivors’ heart-wrenching memories was difficult. It inspired her, she said, to set up the exhibit in a way that would best depict their entire life stories, not just their Holocaust suffering.
Chula Vista Library Director Joy Whatley said the exhibit includes examples of the propaganda used by Nazis prior to the concentration camps, photographs of the survivors and maps of the camps.
“As you go through the display cases what you will see is what everybody who was a survivor actually did while they were (in Chula Vista),” she said.
Ruth Goldschmiedova was locked away in her first concentration camp when she was 13. She survived a series of brutal camps with her mother, including the infamous Auschwitz death camp in Poland. She reunited with her father after she was free. Survivors struggled to start a new life after they were released because they had nothing, Scheller said.
Her grandmother, grandfather and mother were the only members of the extended Goldschmied family who survived. Nazi soldiers rounded up 11,000 Polish Jews from the Goldschmied’s community. Only 200 people made their way back home.
One of the exhibit’s glass cases displays love letters exchanged between young Ruth and Kurt Sax. Scheller said her parents knew each other since they were young because they were distant relatives. When Nazis began threatening Jews in Eastern Europe, Kurt Sax emigrated to the United States and worked in New York. When Ruth was freed from Auschwitz she wrote to Sax, who eventually sent for her. They later moved to Chula Vista and immediately started participating in the community. Ruth created a support organization for Jewish Holocaust survivors. The Sax family owned a grocery store. Kurt Sax promised Ruth she would never experience starvation again, according to Scheller.
Scheller said her mother was an advocate for Holocaust survivors and spoke to the media whenever possible. It was a woman Scheller did not see when she was younger. Only when she was older did Scheller realize her mother was a human rights warrior.
“I saw a news clipping of my mom from 1996,” she said. “I saw this intellectual woman that I never realized.”
Scheller wrote a book about her mother’s experiences and said people were eager to meet Sax during the promotional tour. Students kept her mother motivated when she received hugs, flowers and candies from them, Scheller said.
“(Ruth got energy) from the students,” she said. “I made a point to photograph every single school we ever spoke at. We would go over the pictures and she was so proud of that.”
Ruth Sax said she regretted not being able to attend college during her Holocaust years and was thrilled to receive an honorary degree from Southwestern College in 2018 for her humanitarian work. A swarm of bees interrupted the ceremony the moment Ruth received her degree. Scheller said she believes it was her father visiting her mom and celebrating her accomplishment. For the rest of her life her friends called her Dr. Ruth.
Sax was able to see the exhibit two weeks before she died and made a few last-minute adjustments, Scheller said.
Exhibit visitor Deborah Kent said it is amazing Scheller was able to bring her mother’s dream to life. She said the exhibit brought her to tears.
“Her mom wanted an exhibit like that,” she said. “She wanted the memories to live on.”
Scheller said she likes having the exhibit in the Chula Vista Public Library because its staff takes good care of the artifacts while letting people feel free to navigate through it. She said she sees people crying as they explore the glass cases of World War II images and examples of Nazi anti-Semitism.
“I see them remembering stories they have heard from their families,” she said.
Kent said the exhibit is important because many young Americans do not know much about the Holocaust.
Harry Orgovan, president of the South Bay Historical Society, agreed.
“The Holocaust is not something we can just ignore,” he said. “It has to be brought up and remembered so that we do not make the kind of mistakes that we allowed to be made in the past.”
The grand opening of the exhibit was an event to raise money for buses so that students from the Chula Vista elementary schools would be able to visit the exhibit, Whatley said.
“My goal is to make sure that with this exhibit every student in Chula Vista knows the word Holocaust,” Scheller said.
Whatley said different activities will be showcased each month, including guest speakers, panels and films.
Scheller said she wants to find a permanent home for the exhibit in the South Bay.
“If I could pick a new home, I would want it to be Southwestern College,” she said.
SC President Dr. Kindred Murillo has expressed interest in the idea, Scheller said.
She said the exhibition is a representation as to who her mom was.
“This is my mom,” she said. “I come here and I see my mom.”
