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.
This collection contains the personal papers of Ruth Peschel, a Jewish girl from Breslau who emigrated on a Kindertransport to the UK in 1939.
These comprise correspondence with her family including a letter from her brother in Auschwitz concentration camp, as well as documents, including: work reference, police clearance certificate, tax clearance certificate, police notice of departure, identity card for young persons admitted to the UK under the care of the Inter-Aid Committee for Children and short life histories. There are digital copies of her passport and steamship ticket.
Documents belonging to relatives includes the translated marriage certificate of her parents, birth certificate of her mother Helene Jakobowitz and transcript of the birth register entry for Ruth's brother Emanuel Peschel. Also included are photographs and planning permission (with plans) for an estate in Schoppinitz, Upper Silesia (Szopienice, Poland), owned by Rosalin Grünbaum, a relative of Ruth's grandmother.