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President Roosevelt wanted her help
to bypass the immigrant quota restric-
tions by allowing Jews into the country
as his "guests" and lodging them at
Fort Ontario, a decommissioned army
training base in New York.
Gruber, who instantly accepted the
challenge, was given the rank of "simu-
lated general" to protect her from being
killed if she were captured by the
enemy. The refugees were to be trans-
ported on a ship with wounded
American soldiers.
"These people gave back to America
what Americans had given
them," Gruber said in her
speech and book, which
presents the personal histo-
ries and accomplishments
of the people she rescued.
They include Alex
Margulies, who developed
the CT scan and MRI,
and Rolph Manfred, who
worked on the Polaris and
Minutemen missiles.
"I added 70 little bios
(relating to the people res-
cued) in the new edition
of Haven, and we still feel
like family. We meet all
the time, and they still call me Mother
Ruth. I figure as Mother Ruth, I must
have 5,000 grandchildren, but the
thought of how many more we could
have saved still haunts me."
As Natasha Richardson takes on the
role of Gruber for the television pro-
duction, Anne Bancroft will portray
her mother and Martin Landau her
father. Hal Holbrook will be Harold
Ickes.
"I think the script has captured the
integrity of the story, and that's what's
important to me," Gruber said.
"They've also made composite charac-
ters and listened to my suggestions.
The script is very strong, and there are
many flashbacks."
Gruber went on to tell her audience
about her experiences after the war,
when, as a correspondent for the New
York Post and later the New York
Herald, her mission became to inform
the world of the intolerable conditions
in displaced persons camps. She want-
ed to court public opinion and action
so Jews would be allowed to go to
Palestine.
"Very few people knew what was
happening to the survivors of the
Holocaust," Gruber told the Hadassah
members. "So many of the people
known by survivors were dead, and
their [former] neighbors were strangers.
"I wanted to shake the world by its
lapels and say, 'You know what hap-
pened in the Holocaust, but do you
know what happened right after the
Holocaust? Help me get them out of
those DP camps."'
One of Gruber's most famous pho-
tos, which appeared in Life magazine,
was of the British Union Jack flag with
a swastika, painted by refugees denied
access to Palestine by the British.
"The important issues today are no
different from other times — peace
and justice for all," she said.
Gruber, whose career fanned out
Gruber's mission was
to inform the world
of the intolerable
conditions in displaced
persons camps.
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into free-lance writing for newspapers
and magazines as well as other books,
also was ahead of her times in family
values. Widowed twice, she had been
encouraged to work by husbands,
attorneys and social activists Philip
Michaels and Henry Rosner.
Her son, David Michaels, is assis-
tant secretary for environment, safety
and health with the U.S. Department
of Energy and has followed in his
mother's crusading footsteps. He has
worked to get compensation for gov-
ernment employees suffering ill effects
from being in nuclear plants. Her
daughter, Celia Michaels Evans, was
an Emmy Award-winning video editor
with CBS.
"I raised my children with one goal,
and that was that they become inde-
pendent," said Gruber, who was able to
realize professional goals because her
first husband was willing to step in to
care for the children, and she also was
assisted by her mother and household
help. "I was 41 when my daughter was
born and 43 when my son was born,"
Gruber said.
Both her children also waited until
later in life to marry, and she now has
four young grandchildren.
"The (TV producers) invited me to
be in Toronto for the taping of the
mini-series, and that will be a whole
new adventure for me," Gruber said. Li