Ruth Ellen Glücksmann (Glicksmann) was the daughter of Paula Glücksmann (Glicksmann), who is also listed in this memorial book. Ruth Ellen's father probably was Ernst Falkenstein, a married man who was murdered with his wife and two children in the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz in 1944. Ruth Ellen was born on 16 June 1933 in the Israelite Hospital in Frankfurt am Main, Gagernstraße 36. Shortly after her birth she was taken to the home "Isenburg" together with her mother. There Ruth Ellen spent her childhood until she was rescued in a “Kindertransport” (children's transport) to England at the age of six years in May 1939. After arriving in Margate, she lived at Bunce Court School in Otterden, Kent.

The Bunce Court School was established by the German immigrant Anna Essinger as a "school in exile" in October 1933. With the support of the Quakers, Essinger continued the reform-educational concept of “Landschulheim Herrlingen” (now city of Blaustein in Baden-Württemberg) in Bunce Court School. She had founded the school in Herrlingen together with her sister, Clara Weimersheimer in 1926.

In England, Ruth Ellen Glücksmann was adopted by A.V. Murphy from Ramsgate. After Miss Murphy’s death the young woman earned her living as a model in London. At a gathering of the evangelical preacher and Baptist pastor Billy Graham at London's Wembley Stadium she met her later husband Michael J. Freegard. Three children emanated from the marriage with him. In second marriage, Ruth Ellen married John Rose who died soon after the wedding. The couple lived in Sandhurst in Kent. Later, Ruth Ellen met Alfred Blanche, with whom she lived until his death in Fairlight, Sussex.

Ruth Ellen was a woman full of joie de vivre who lived a full and happy life in England after a difficult childhood. However, the trauma of her childhood left her deeply scarred. Because of her experience as a child she felt ashamed of being Jewish and hid this from their children until her late 50’s. Ruth Ellen grew up without a family. She was discriminated, persecuted and threatened after the National Socialist “Machtergreifung” (takeover) in 1933. She lived in the “Home Isenburg” as a 5-year-old girl, when the institution was attacked and set on fire by National Socialist violent activists. Ellen Ruth Glücksmann was rescued in 1939, but had to flee to a foreign country with a foreign language without a family at the age of six.

Ruth Rose, née Glücksmann (Glicksmann), died on January 24, 2019 in Fairlight.

The biography could be compiled by information from Nicola Freegard. daughter of Ruth Ellen Glücksmann

Additional source: Stadtarchiv Neu-Isenburg (municipal archives)