Ruth Ibbitson (née Peschel) collection

Ruth Gertrude Peschel was born in Jauer, Silesia, in 1923. She was the daughter of shoemaker Otto Peschel (b 1898) and his wife Helene (b 1894, née Jakobowitz), who married in 1920. Due to Nazi legislation Ruth had to leave school early in 1937 and was unable to train as a seamstress. In 1938 she moved with her parents to Breslau.

Ruth Peschel emigrated on a Kindertransport to England in June 1939. From Harwich she was taken to Scotland, where she stayed at Whittingehame House, East Lothian, which had been converted into a school for refugee children. The school, known as the Whittingehame Farm School, sheltered 160 children. In November 1940, she got a job in a household in Leeds. Her married name was Ibbitson.