Ruth Kent - August 7, 1984
Family
Can you tell me your name please, and where you're from?
My name is Ruth Kent, my maiden name is Weintraub, and I was born in Łódź, Poland.
Tell me a little about uh, your family and your life in Łódź before the war.
Uh, my father died a year before the war broke out in 1938 and my parents owned a bakery. My mother took over the business and she had um, we were four children and she adopted two, so actually there were six children she had to support. But uh, she worked very hard and we had a uh, lovely home in a very nice neighborhood and uh, she made sure we, we are not missing anything. And we would uh, summer times she would send us on vacations and she would also uh, have uh, different relatives weddings at our house that were poor and couldn't afford it. And my mother was very generous, so was my father. They would support the local synagogues. And uh, she was also very cultural, she had tickets to the opera, season tickets, and the uh, theater. So, I remember my uh, life before the war as being very beautiful life. It was a very big family and uh, extremely dedicated one. Very close knit family.
How many people in the family? First cousins, aunts, uncles...
Oh, I just couldn't begin, probably uh, maybe close to seventy, family, it was a large family. One of my father's uh, brothers had nine children and accident--none of them, incidentally, none of them survived. Nine children and none of them survived. So, that was uh, it was a large family.
How many of your immediate family survived the war?
Um, about uh, five cousins survived. First cousins survived--my--from on my father's side. There was no one that survived on my mother's side. Unfortunately.
Your brothers, three brothers?
On my, my brothers?
Your brothers.
No, I uh, I lost uh, my uh, younger brother and my uh, sort of stepbrother I lost. And my sister also, the one my mother adopted.
And your mother?
And my mother, perished.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn