Ruth Federmann

“My name is Ruth Federmann, née Steckelmacherová. I was born in Prostějov in Moravia, but I lived in Prague. My father was an architect, with a degree in civil engineering. You surely know Roxy in Prague – he was the one who built it, some time in 1930 or 1932. My mother was his office manager.”

“When I was thirteen, the war broke out. The Germans came to Prague and my mom wanted me to leave. She had experienced the First World War and she was afraid of food shortages. I was a weak and sickly child and for this reason she wanted me to leave Prague. I could go either to England or to Palestine. But mom said that I would get better education in England. My ´kindertransport´ to England was scheduled to depart on August 1, 1939 (actually September 1, 1939). The war broke out. We came to the railway station and the Germans did not allow the train to leave and we thus went home. On November 27, I traveled to Palestine to my mother’s sister. I was thirteen.”

“We saw that we needed to start buying… There were small houses on Yarkon Street (in Tel Aviv close to the Mediterranean shore – auth.’s note), they were not large, only about the size of a villa. Jews from America arrived there, it was already the State of Israel, and they wanted to see what the State of Israel looked like. We got to know several people and they established a company and brought money. We began to develop. The small hotel remained there and we built another hotel next to it, about hundred and thirty or hundred and fifty rooms. Now we have fourteen hotels all over Israel, the well-known Dan Hotels.”

“My son was born on May 15, 1948. That's the day the British left Palestine. May 15th is Independence Day - our Independence Day. We were in this small hotel. Everyone who later became our politicians met there - Golda Meir, Ben Gurion... And always... We knew each other. The hotel was small, 20 rooms. When I was still pregnant, as they say, they would ask me: 'When? When?' So I said, when the English leave Palestine, my child will be born. At that time we didn’t know if it would be a boy or a girl. And my son was born on May 15th. With the first bombing.”

"When the Germans came to Prague, my mother wanted me to leave because I couldn't go to school anymore. She always said I had a talent for drawing—mainly fashion. I have always been interested in drawing fashion. She sent some of my drawings to England so that they would take me on the Kindertransport. And I was supposed to go to England on 1 August 1939. When we got to the station, the Germans wouldn't let the train leave. So I went back home. This was the Kindertransport. 250 children. 250 children and only four survived. And me among them. Because I could go to Palestine.”

"In Spálené Poříčí, where there were uncultured boys - they didn't know... I would go for walks with my brother, and sometimes they would yell: 'You smelly Jew!' So I went to them and said: 'Now go to church and tell Jesus. Because he is Jewish. Because he was a Jew. And he died a Jew. He didn't want a new religion.' That's what the apostles did. He didn't want it. So the boys would open their eyes wide and wouldn't believe what I said. I wasn't a girl, I was a boy."

“(The attitude to religion and faith. Did you go to a synagogue?) My father was an atheist. I don’t remember that we would observe any holidays. Then (after father’s death?) we went to a synagogue on Yom Kippur and on the Jewish New Year, that was our religion. I am an atheist, too. If there is a God, he is not good. The things that he does to people… In Tanach, our Bible, there is God together with the devil, they work together.”

“I got into the transport to England, because mom had sent my drawings to England. I am glad that I did not go to England. I was doing fine here. It was difficult at the beginning, but then my life got very interesting. My husband was well-known all over the world. In 1990 he was the president of the International Hotel Association. The first congress in Prague after 1990 was a hotel congress, and my husband presided this congress.”