Ruth Gruber

As a writer and humanitarian, Ruth Gruber produced work of greater consequence than many journalists ever achieve, becoming a larger-than-life figure in the process. Born in Brooklyn to Russian immigrants, she attended New York University and in 1931 was awarded a fellowship to study in Cologne. There she was exposed to Nazism. Upon her return to the United States, she began writing for the New York Herald Tribune, which sent her to Siberia and the Soviet Arctic to report on women living under communism and fascism. During World War II, she traveled to Italy to bring Jewish refugees and wounded American soldiers to the United States. Following the war, Gruber was a firsthand witness to the fate of the ship Exodus 1947. She continued her work over the following decades, reporting on such stories as the exodus of Ethiopian Jews.