Ruth was born in 1936 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. When she turned six, the war was raging and Jewish children were forbidden from attending school. Some of the children studied at home with their parents or with Jewish teachers who had lost their jobs. In 1944 the Pressburger family - parents and their two daughters - were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, where the girls Ruth and Naomi were sent to their deaths with their mother. Only Shimon, Ruth's father, survived. When he returned to the family home he found his daughters' notebooks. All that remains of the two little girls, whose lessons are written in childish script in the notebooks, are a few biographical details and some books, autograph books and school notebooks, some of which are empty.
Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection
Donated by Ariella Erez, Ramat Hasharon, Israel