London actress and Holocaust Survivor, 96, dies with her husband, 97, in which Swiss Suicide Clinic has said goodbye to the family
A Holocaust survivor announced in an e -mail to her family that she and her husband had decided to end their lives in a Swiss suicide clinic and not to endure the thoughts of being separated together after 75 years.
The 96 -year -old Ruth Posner and her husband Michael, 97, told the family members in an e -mail that at the time of reading the message they “mixed this mortal coil”.
They explained that, although nobody suffered from an incurable illness, they had their decreasing health, that they no longer really lived, but only existed.
“Dear family and friends that they wrote on Tuesday.
“I’m sorry not to have mentioned it, but if you receive this e -mail, we have” deprived this mortal coil “.
Ruth Posner, 96, and her husband Michael, 97, shared the news with her family in an e -mail (PA) with her family.
“The decision was mutually and without pressure from outside. We had a long life and together for almost 75 years.
“We had an interesting and varied life and to lose grief, Jeremy, our son. We enjoyed our time together. We tried not to regret the past, to live in the present and not to expect too much of the future.
“Lots of dear Ruth & Mike.”
Ruth Posner became a Holocaust survivor, dancer, choreographer and actress, who later became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
At the age of only nine, she made a life -size decision to escape the Warsaw Ghetto with a fake pass. She spent three years on the run with her aunt and was a Catholic schoolgirl.
Tragically, the rest of her family was killed in the Treblinka extermination camp.
Ruth arrived in Great Britain at the age of 16 and did not speak English. She started to train as a dancer unimpressed and later wrote down in the London Contemporary Dance Theater.
She finally moved to New York to study theater art at Hunter College before returning to Great Britain, where she brought a place in the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company.
Ruth married her husband Michael in 1950 and together they had a son who died at the age of 37.
Ruth Posner became a Holocaust survivor in Warsaw, Poland, who later became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company (PA)
Ruth was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) in the 2022 New Year’s awards.
The couple is survived by a grandson.
Karen Pollock CBE, Managing Director of the Holocaust Educational Trust, tribute to Ruth, said: “Ruth was an extraordinary woman. She survived the Radom Ghetto, the slave work and life in hiding under a false identity. At the end of the war, Ruth and her aunt were the only surviving members of her family.
“After a dazzling career in theater and dance, Ruth decided to share her testimony in response to rising anti -Semitism in Great Britain. Although in the 1980s she set itself the task of talking to as many young people as possible about her experiences during the Holocaust.
“She hoped that the leaders of tomorrow would learn the lessons of the past. Ruth was unique. Full of charisma and warmth, she left an impression on everyone who met her. We will miss her.”
Sonja Linden, a playwright and artistic director who knew the couple for 30 years, said the Times that Ruth was “frail” and her husband had a macular degeneration and bad hearing, but both were “intellectually very good” without serious illnesses.
“This was a decision that they made together some time ago that they wanted to die together,” she said.
“You made an agreement a year ago to go to Switzerland. We didn’t know that they had actually left until we received the e -mail, which was sad, how we wanted to say goodbye,” she added.
Linden told the newspaper that the Dignitas Clinic in Zurich could not help the couple because they had no doctor’s confirmation of living less than six months. Instead, they turned to the Pegasos Clinic near Basel.
