Ruth Reed family papers

Amalie Noher (1889-1941) was born on 16 May 1889 to Simon and Bertha (née Hertzfeld) Noher in Poland. She had eight siblings, Ella, Salo, Bruno, Leo, Charlotte, Trude, Bernhard, and Selma. Amalie married Chaim Ajzyk Feldman (1896-1942?), a dentist born in Będzin, Poland. Chaim had at least one brother, Wolf, who immigrated to the United States prior to the outbreak of World War II. Their daughter Ruth (1920-2006, later Ruth Riesenberg and Ruth Reed) was born on 8 December 1920 in Katowice, Poland, and Amalie and Chaim divorced in 1928. Ruth’s parents both remarried, and her father had a son, Ignatz (1939-) with his second wife, Gusta (1911-). In 1939, Chaim was forced to hand over valuables to the Nazis in Będzin. His son Ignatz died after Chaim paid his neighbors to watch him and they claimed he fell out of a window. Chaim and Gusta were deported around 1942 to either the Buchenwald or Theresienstadt concentration camps where they both perished. Amalie and Ruth were also in Będzin at the time of the Nazi invasion of Poland. They were deported to Sosnowiec by 1941. Amalie suffered from heart disease, and died from an overdose of pain medication the same year. In 1942, Ruth was deported to the Neusalz subcamp of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp, where she was a forced-laborer in the Gruschwitz textile factory. Because she spoke both Polish and German, she also acted as a translator. In January 1945, the prisoners were sent on a death march from Neusalz to Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Ruth and a friend managed to escape the death march in Žatec, Czechoslovakia. They were caught by a German soldier, but he let them go. Ruth was able to conceal her identity, and worked in Žatec making wreaths for dead SS soldiers prior to liberation. After the war, she went to the Bad Reichenhall displaced persons camp in Austria. While in the camp, she got married, and her daughter Betina was born in 1948. After Bad Reichenhall closed, they went to the displaced persons camp in Hallein, Austria. In 1951, they immigrated to Australia. Amalie Feldman’s brother Salo, his wife Ella, and their daughter Ina Noher immigrated to Wellington, New Zealand prior to World War II. Her sister Charlotte and her husband Pincus Paul Bromberger were deported to Theresienstadt in 1942, and then sent to the Treblinka concentration camp where they perished. The fates of her other siblings are unknown. Ruth’s cousins Hans and Heinz Noher survived the war, but the rest likely perished in the Holocaust. The collection primarily contains pre-war photographs of Ruth Reed (née Feldman) and her family in Katowice, Poland, along with post-war identification papers, correspondence, photographs, and restitution claims paperwork. Also included are wartime photographs of her paternal relatives in the Noher family who moved to Wellington, New Zealand prior to the war. The biographical materials include a small amount of documents related to members of the Noher and Bromberger families, a family tree, Hans Noher’s death certificate, post-war identification papers of Ruth Reed, handwritten notes regarding her Holocaust experiences, and restitution claims paperwork primarily filed with the Claims Conference. The correspondence contains a letter written to Ruth from her cousin Hans in 1946 regarding Max Noher, a possible relative who also survived the war. There are also letters from the Red Cross regarding Ruth’s search for the fates of family members, a letter from Ruth to her mother, and a letter from Ruth’s uncle Bruno Noher. The photographs contain pre-war depictions of Ruth Reed as a child and young woman in Katowice, her parents, and various members of the Noher family. There are also some wartime and post-war photographs of her paternal relatives in the Noher family who moved to Wellington, New Zealand prior to the war.