A once-in-a-century experience not only for Ruth Weiss

                             October 24, 2024

Dear friends of Ruth Weiss, dear members!

Ruth has arrived safely in Jutland after her big celebration in Aschaffenburg and is still busy thanking her personally for the many congratulations, including the congratulations of the Danish king. She will send us some retrospective and forward-looking words on her special birthday, which we will forward immediately.

Before we describe the festivities and add some photos, the RWG would like to thank the city of Aschaffenburg and the Ruth Weiss secondary school for the preparations and wonderful design of the two big festivities on the day before and the day of the 100th birthday.

Due to the very limited number of places, it was unfortunately not possible to invite all the many from near and far who would have liked to personally honor Ruth with their presence and celebrate a reunion with her on this irretrievable day. Livestreams could not be placed for technical reasons, but we hope to be able to submit some private video excerpts later

99+1 balloon and a happy family celebration at the Ruth Weiss Realschule

 

It was particularly nice to see how proud the entire school family of the Ruth Weiss Realschule is of its namesake.The fact that Sandra Finnegan is not only a headmistress but also a friend of Ruth was noticeable from the first moment – we were able to witness a family celebration! Ruth was the centre of inspiration and wonderful contributions from all ages – she was queen in fairytale land – and yet, at the same time, visibly an incentive for young people in their real world and in the effort to promote social cohesion across all prejudices.

 

With music, choreographic masterpieces, and yet a lot of spontaneity and the best of moods, the Ruth Weiss Realschule celebrated its Ruth. Representatives of each class presented her with a rose, which came together to form a wonderful “100 bouquet of roses”, which from then on accompanied Ruth wherever she was. Children from the Kasisi Children’s Home in Zambia congratulated via video with an African song in Nyanja. Of course, the birthday cake came handmade from the school kitchen. Ruth unveiled a 100 cast in concrete, which now, signed by Ruth, accentuates the entrance to the school in a new way.

 

 

 

The Ruth Weiss Society was given the opportunity to relaunch its lively crime series ‘Miss Moore’ with and for Ruth – the diversity of Ruth’s work astonished several guests at the event, and turning to the students, Ruth spontaneously commented on the true background of her latest novel ‘Miss Moore and the Saboteurs of Jutland’ – namely the venture of a young resistance group in Nazi-occupied Denmark during the 2nd World War and the efforts of the Danish King to protect Jewish fellow citizens from persecution or to enable them to flee.

 

The Ruth Weiss Society was given the opportunity to relaunch its lively crime series ‘Miss Moore’ with and for Ruth – the diversity of Ruth’s work astonished several guests at the event, and turning to the students, Ruth spontaneously commented on the true background of her latest novel ‘Miss Moore and the Saboteurs of Jutland’ – namely the venture of a young resistance group in Nazi-occupied Denmark during the 2nd World War and the efforts of the Danish King to protect Jewish fellow citizens from persecution or to enable them to flee.

RWS Football Tournament Against Racism 25.7.2024 Ruth herself presents the Ruth Weiss Cup (in the background Headmistress Sandra Finnegarn (c) RWG 2024

Melanie Boehi also brought a project gift with greetings from Switzerland: with the University of Lausanne, selected interviews by the journalist Ruth Weiss with outstanding personalities of the apartheid and decolonisation period of southern Africa, all of which are archived in Basel at the ‘Basel Africa Bibliographies,’ were didactically prepared and made digitally accessible to underline their great lasting value.

A big, well-rounded celebration of RWS! And Ruth even found the energy to personally hand over the ‘Ruth Weiss Cup’ to the champions after the final of the ‘Football Tournament Against Racism,’ which had been donated by her friend Prof. Andrei Markovits.

We were happy to see such a good-humored and energetic Ruth, who looked righteously tired but happy in the evening.

The ceremony of the city of Aschaffenburg – honour and touching words

 

The ceremony of the city of Aschaffenburg on the birthday was another highlight.

 

Ruth Weiss with Aschaffenburg’s Lord Mayor J. Herzing 27.7.2024 (c) City of ABG

Not only was Ruth honored by the Lord Mayor Jürgen Herzing, but also Oded Zingher, who initiated and created the database of Jewish life in Lower Franconia and was also able to contribute a lot about Ruth’s family history, found very touching personal words for Ruth.

 

Loosely based on a Jewish family saying: ‘G-d cannot be everywhere – that’s why he gave us a mother’, he said, ‘G-d can’t be everywhere – that’s why he gave you, dear Ruth’ – and put it in a nutshell for everyone present!

Oded Zingher to Ruth… (c) City of Aschaffenburg

Ruth Weiss receives the gift from A. Hohmann Verlagsleiter Edition AV: LETTERS FROM RUTH’S FATHER Photo credits (c) City of Aschaffenburg 27.7.2024

The Ruth Weiss Society presented Ruth with a gift from her publisher Andreas Hohmann, the framed cover of a book on the war letters written by Ruth’s father, Richard Löwenthal from the First World War, a young Jewish German who was honoured with the Iron Cross, but whose love of the fatherland was trampled underfoot by the deprivation of rights during the Nazi era. The book will be published in the fall by Edition AV.

 

And a surprise guest came with a special greeting message.

 

Dr. Regula Venske, Secretary General of International PEN until October 2023 and long-time President of PEN Germany, conveyed both the congratulations of PEN and a special message from the Syndicate – the Association of Crime Writers of the German Language. With heartfelt congratulations on her 100th birthday, Ruth Weiss was offered honorary membership in the Syndicate in recognition of the inspiring crime novels, especially the series ‘Miss Moore’ and her special ‘culture of remembrance’, and in the hope of further ‘good complicity.’

Ruth Weiss with words of thanks to celebrate her 100th birthday 27.7.2024 in Aschaffenburg (c) City ABG

The event was again musically framed by the Ruth Weiss Realschule with singing and piano, as well as a pianist from the municipal music school with Mozart sonatas to Ruth’s taste.

 

While Ruth had allowed herself peace and quiet on the morning of her birthday before the ceremony of the city, we still celebrated her with a glass of sparkling wine and were amazed at the large pretzel 100 baked especially for the pretzel queen Ruth.

Ruth, the Franconian Pretzel Queen with her 100-pretzel (c) RWG g feurle 2024

In the afternoon, Ruth was ready to cut the family’s birthday cake in a large circle. It had the Fürth cloverleaf, symbol of Ruth’s birthplace, on the top floor. Of course, no one dared to nibble on the edible photos from Ruth’s life.

 

In view of the smiling jubilarian, the Ruth Weiss Circle of Friends soared to musical heights – a birthday canon was achieved with spontaneously intervening conductors from Westphalia.

… and Ruth cutting the family cake (c) RWG g feurle 2024

The mood at the coffee feast was further lifted by animating conversations with Ruth, and the Zoom congratulations from friends from Germany and all over the world, from the USA, Australia, South Africa, Zimbabwe…

In the evening, the friends were able to exchange ideas with the family and guests of honour at the banquet.

 

Aschaffenburg showed its friendliest side to all guests – not only for the festivities described, but also on spontaneous excursions in the city – where we were invited by Bernard Hench to his artist Cafe Krem for a coffee break and, to our surprise, found all of Ruth’s books as reading material.

At short notice, Oded Zingher was able to persuade Anja Lippert, head of the municipal museums, to fetch a wonderful Torah curtain donated by the Löwenthal family in 1909 from the depot so that we could marvel at it.

She then led us through the Jewish Museum, where we also saw other objects that private individuals had rescued from destroyed synagogues and prayer houses in the region in 1938 and kept hidden until the end of the war, learned more about the pre-war history of the former Jewish community of Aschaffenburg, and also saw photos from Ruth’s family

Sonja Lippert explains the story of the Torah curtain of the Löwenthal family from 1909, admired by the family members of Ruth Weiss and friends from South Africa and Germany who had travelled from Australia and Israel (c) RWG 2024

A big thank you to all helping hands from Aschaffenburg and the surrounding area!

Ruth herself did not miss the opportunity to say goodbye to her guests – the family from Australia and Israel, a good friend from South Africa and friends from Germany – in person. Again the memories bubbled up and you could hardly find an end …

… A greeting to all of you, see you next time!

 

The RWG Board Team