{"product_id":"9780805242430","title":"Witness: One of the Great Correspondents of the Twentieth Century Tells Her Story","description":"\u003ctable\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor\/Contributor(s):\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"\"\u003eGruber, Ruth\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSchocken\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDate:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e4\/24\/2007\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBinding:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"\"\u003eHardcover\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCondition:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"\"\u003eNEW\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/tbody\u003e\u003c\/table\u003eWith her perfect memory (and plenty of zip), ninety-five-year-old Ruth Gruber—adventurer,  international correspondent, photographer, maker of (and witness to) history, responsible  for rescuing hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees during World War II and after—tells her story in her own words and photographs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Gruber’s life has been extraordinary  and extraordinarily heroic. She received a B.A. from New York University in three  years, a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin a year later, and a Ph.D.  from the University of Cologne (magna cum laude) one year after that, becoming at  age twenty the youngest Ph.D. in the world (it made headlines in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e;  the subject of her thesis: the then little-known Virginia Woolf).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e At twenty-four,  Gruber became an international correspondent for the \u003ci\u003eNew York Herald Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e and  traveled across the Soviet Arctic, scooping the world and witnessing, firsthand,  the building of cities in the Siberian gulag by the pioneers and prisoners Stalin  didn’t execute . . . At thirty, she traveled to Alaska for Harold L. Ickes, FDR’s  secretary of the interior, to look into homesteading for G.I.s after World War II  . . . And when she was thirty-three, Ickes assigned another secret mission to her—one that transformed her life: Gruber escorted 1,000 Holocaust survivors from Italy  to America, the only Jews given refuge in this country during the war. “I have a  theory,” Gruber said, “that even though we’re born Jews, there is a moment in our  lives when we become Jews. On that ship, I became a Jew.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Gruber’s role as rescuer  of Jews was just beginning.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In \u003ci\u003eWitness\u003c\/i\u003e, Gruber writes about what she saw and shows  us, through her haunting and life-affirming photographs–taken on each of her assignments– the worlds, the people, the landscapes, the courage, the hope, the life she witnessed  up close and firsthand: the Siberian gulag of the 1930s and the new cities being  built there (Gruber, then untrained as a photographer, brought her first Rolleicord  with her) . . . the Alaska highway of 1943, built by 11,000 soldiers, mostly black  men from the South (the highway went from Dawson Creek, British Columbia, 1,500 miles  to Fairbanks) . . . her thirteen-day voyage on the army-troop transport \u003ci\u003eHenry Gibbins\u003c\/i\u003e with refugees and wounded American soldiers, escorting and then photographing the  refugees as they arrived in Oswego, New York (they arrived in upstate New York as  Adolf Eichmann was sending 750,000 Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In 1947, Gruber  traveled for the \u003ci\u003eHerald Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e with the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine  (UNSCOP) through the postwar displaced persons camps in Europe, and then to North  Africa, Palestine, and the Arab world; the committee’s recommendation that Palestine  be partitioned into a Jewish state and an Arab state was one of the key factors that  led to the founding of Israel.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e We see Gruber’s remarkable photographs of a former American pleasure boat (which had been renamed \u003ci\u003eExodus\u003c\/i\u003e 1947) as it limped into Haifa  harbor, trying to deliver 4,500 Jewish refugees (including 600 orphans), under attack  by five British destroyers and a cruiser that stormed the \u003ci\u003eExodus\u003c\/i\u003e with guns, tear  gas, and truncheons, while the crew of the \u003ci\u003eExodus\u003c\/i\u003e fought back with potatoes, sticks,  and cans of kosher meat. In a cable to the \u003ci\u003eHerald Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e, Gruber reported that “the  ship looks like a matchbox splintered by a nutcracker.” She was with the people of  the Exodus and photographed them when they were herded onto three prison ships. Gruber  represented the entire American press aboard the ship Runnymede Park, photographing  the prisoners as they defiantly painted a swastika on the Union Jack.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e During her  thirty-two years as a correspondent, Ruth Gruber photographed what she saw and captured  the triumph of the human spirit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Take photographs with your heart,” Edward Steichen  told her.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eWitness\u003c\/i\u003e is a revelation—of a time, a place, a world, a spirit, a belief.  It is, above all else, a book of heart.","brand":"Schocken","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44214164881663,"sku":"9780805242430","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0452\/0886\/2873\/files\/9780805242430_s600x595.jpg?v=1775598205","url":"https:\/\/massivebookshop.com\/products\/9780805242430","provider":"MASSIVE BOOKSHOP","version":"1.0","type":"link"}