Ruth Hirsch obituary

http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2014/dec/11/ruth-hirsch

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My mother, Ruth Hirsch, who has died aged 87, was a childhood refugee from nazism, who went on to improve the lives of children in places as different as a Chilterns village and deprived areas of Washington DC.

She was born into a well-to-do Jewish family in Berlin, the daughter of Erwin Weissrock, a bookseller and librarian, and his wife, Charlotte. Between the ages of six and 11, she experienced a series of shocks: flight from Hitler’s Germany to the Iranian capital, Tehran; the accidental drowning of her eight-year-old brother, Bubi; return to a hostile Berlin in 1937; and escape once more, via Italy, to Britain.

At Stoatley Rough, a boarding school for refugees near Haslemere, Surrey, Ruth fell in love with the English countryside, and never again wanted to be considered anything but English.

In 1956, she married Fred Hirsch, an economist who made his reputation by identifying “positional goods” – those whose value derives from scarcity and desirability – as a symptom of affluence. Fred and Ruth’s first home was a quaint, 17th-century Chilterns cottage, at the village of Radnage, Buckinghamshire, where Ruth set up a nursery school in the barn.

In the 1960s, when Fred worked for the International Monetary Fund, the family moved to Washington DC, where Ruth again worked with children but in a very different environment, as a volunteer in the residential Junior Village for disadvantaged children. Ruth was so shocked by the children’s treatment that she became a whistleblower, prompting a front-page exposé in the Washington Post that contributed to the home’s closure in 1973.

When Fred died in 1978 aged 46, Ruth sought a new challenge, and found it in the Oxfordshire village of Wootton, where she restored two old houses, one the former residence of the author JB Priestley. There she also ran a market garden scheme for local children that was linked to an Oxfam project in Thailand, held annual Easter egg hunts, and became the life and soul of the village. At her B&B, she inspired visitors from around the world with her warm welcome and stories. Her transition from refugee to English countrywoman was complete.

Ruth is survived by three children, five grandchildren and the three sisters with whom she fled mainland Europe.