COMPUTERS FOR SENIORS
by Shirley Camper Soman, ACSW
AN ASTOUNDING STORY AND AN EXTRAORDINARY WOMAN
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The book "Haven" was a landmark. It was the amazing story of the only mass rescue by the United States of 1,000 people slated for slaughter during the Holocaust. The hands-on rescuer was an unknown, unsung heroine of 31 years. She finally wrote the story in the early 1980’s; it was titled, published and in 2001 became the four-hour CBS film “Haven.” She was played by Natasha Richardson and Ann Bancroft played her mother. Ruth Gruber is now 92. She began to use a computer in 1983 because her editor told her to get a computer, and her children bothered her about it too. She wrote “Haven” on that Mac Classic – which remains her choice. She has now written 16 books, five of them on the computer. During World War II, she
was a special assistant to Harold L. Ickes, then Secretary of the Interior
in the Roosevelt Administration. Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Secretary of
the Treasury brought the President a report called “Acquiescence
of the United States Government in the Murder of the Jews.” Six
days later Roosevelt created a brand
new agency called the War Refugee Board and shortly after that announced
that the government would take in 1000 refugees – people hanging
on to life -- while the War was still raging. |
The president dropped the whole assignment into the lap of Harold Ickes who needed to send an American to Italy. This person had the responsibility of escorting these 1000 people -- mostly Jews -- and preparing them for life in America, Ickes picked Ruth Gruber. In order to make sure that her own life would be saved if she was captured by the Nazis, he made her a General. Ruth flew over to Italy.where the 1000 people on the brink of being murdered were put aboard an American troop transport. . In the midst of the war in the Atlantic, avoiding German submarines, the ship picked up these desperate refugees and transported them to the United States. Of that group, 18 countries were represented. The refugees were settled in upstate New York and Ruth kept in close touch with them through all the years, visiting them every so often. In Oswego, New York, right on Lake Ontario, a museum concerning the rescued people has opened. The museum has a library named the Dr. Ruth Gruber Library and Research Center.
Ruth’s adventures in the computer field were aided and abetted by her two children who also pushed her to use one – and helped her thereafter to use it. She has dictated some of her books, but loves her computer. Her latest book, recently published is “Inside of Time: My Journey From Alaska to Israel. A Memoir with Eleanor Roosevelt, Harold Ickes, Golda Meir and Other Friends” which she also wrote on the computer. She has been nominated for a Pulitzer prize.
Ruth, widowed many years ago, lives in a large upper West Side apartment in Manhattan. She is always extremely busy giving talks, going to parties, and, of course, writing. Now she always uses her computer. Whenever she has had a computer problem, she has turned to her children. Her daughter, Celia Michaels –Evans is a whiz at the computer (according to her mother, of course!) and she was a video editor for ten years at CBS. Her son, David Michaels was the Assistant Secretary of Energy in the Clinton Administration and now is a professor of Public Health in Washington. After several weeks of using the computer at the very beginning, she called her son and told him she had wiped out a whole day’s work inadvertently. Her son told her when she had three such experiences, she would be fine thereafter!
Ruth is very, very organized. She has accumulated 350 notebooks , all annotated and labeled, of her notes and experiences. Her latest book took her only 7 months to write. Ruth says that “the student always surpasses the master builder,” as an example of the pride she takes in her niece. This science writer is Dava Sobel who is the author of a noted book about Longitude – and also a book titled “Galileo’s Daughter.” But, of course, no one else has the unique and record rescue that led Ruth to write “Haven.” The book is still published and has been converted to a serious musical play, the lyrics of which were written by Joe Darios who wrote the lyrics for “Man of La Mancha.”
Could she have done all that she did without the help of her computer? Possible but in my opinion doubtful!