[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 29 (Tuesday, March 1, 2011)] [Extensions of Remarks] [Page E388] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] IN RECOGNITION OF THE MANY ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF RUTH GRUBER, AN AMERICAN JOURNALIST, PHOTOGRAPHER, WRITER AND HUMANITARIAN ______ HON. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of new york in the house of representatives Tuesday, March 1, 2011 Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to Ruth Gruber, an extraordinary woman whose life's work has made her an icon and a role model. Over the course of her long and active life, she has been a ground-breaking journalist and photographer, a brilliant scholar, an exceptional writer and a compassionate government official. Most of all, she is a humanitarian whose leadership and intellect helped save thousands of lives. Ms. Gruber received the American Spirit Award from The Common Good (TCG) on February 3, 2011. In addition, TCG will be screening Ahead of Time, a 2009 documentary about Ms. Gruber's life. Under the leadership of the dynamic Patricia Duff, TCG is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that strives to inspire broad participation in our democracy through the free exchange of ideas and civil dialogue. Born in Brooklyn in 1911, Ruth Gruber studied at the University of Cologne in Germany where, at the age of twenty, she received her Ph.D. Her dissertation on Virginia Woolf made her the youngest Ph.D. in the world, earning her international headlines and a movie star's welcome when she returned to the United States. Ms. Gruber returned to the United States where she became a journalist. In 1935, she won a fellowship to write a study of women under fascism, communism, and democracy. The first journalist to enter the Soviet Arctic, she published her experiences in the book, I Went to the Soviet Arctic. In 1941, after reading her book, Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes sent Ms. Gruber as his field representative to make a social and economic study of Alaska. Her reports were forwarded to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and played a major role in shaping American policies in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, which were then on the frontlines of World War II. Among other things, her reports documented the strong work ethic of African-American soldiers. When Ms. Gruber returned to Washington, Ickes appointed her his special assistant, a position she held for five years. When President Roosevelt decided to accept a thousand European immigrants in the midst of World War II and the Holocaust, Secretary Harold Ickes asked her to escort the refugees to the United States. Largely but not entirely Jewish, the 984 refugees who were chosen to make the journey came from all over Europe. The refugees were permitted into the country with the idea that they would return home following the war's end. Following their arrival in New York harbor on August 3, 1944, they were kept segregated on an old army base in Oswego, New York. Ms. Gruber served as their liaison with the outside world. When the end of the war came, Ms. Gruber lobbied the President and Congress, with the help of Catholic, Jewish and Protestant clergy and other advocates, and convinced them to allow the refugees to stay in America. Following the war, Ms. Gruber became a foreign correspondent for the Herald Tribune. In 1947, the New York Post asked her to cover the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine, which was formed to consider what to do with the Jewish Holocaust survivors who could not return home. She traveled to the displaced persons camps, covered the Nuremberg trials, and met with Zionist leaders in the Middle East. In 1947, while covering the Middle East for the Herald Tribune, she learned of the British refusal to allow the Exodus, a former cruise ship crammed with 4,500 refugees, to land in Haifa. The British loaded the survivors onto several boats and sent them first to Marseilles and then to Germany. Ms. Gruber was permitted to travel with the refugees from Marseilles to Germany as the pool reporter. Her dispatches, later collected in the book, Exodus 1947: The Ship That Launched a Nation, introduced the world to desperation and determination of the survivors. Her iconic photograph of refugees on board the ship under a flag bearing the British Union Jack overlaid with a Nazi swastika became Life Magazine's photo of the week and was reproduced around the world. Ms. Gruber continued to work as a foreign correspondent until 1966, and has continued to write books up to the present day. In 1985, Ms. Gruber witnessed another exodus--she traveled to isolated Jewish villages to aid in the rescue of the Ethiopian Jews. She chronicled her experiences in Rescue: The Exodus of the Ethiopian Jews. In 1998, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from her peers in the American Society of Journalists and Authors as ``a pioneering journalist and author whose books chronicle the most important events of the twentieth century.'' When asked the secret of her success, she said: ``Have dreams, have visions and let no obstacle stop you.'' Ms. Gruber was married twice, first to Philip H. Michaels and, after his death, to Henry Rosner. In 1952, at age forty-one, she gave birth to her first child, Celia; her son, David, was born in 1954. Mr. Speaker, I ask my distinguished colleagues to join me in recognizing the remarkable career and achievements of Ruth Gruber, an indefatigable journalist, activist and humanitarian. ____________________