VALLEY LIVING: Ruth Shaw’s journey from WWII refugee to Valley local
Published 6:00 pm Thursday, October 3, 2024
Ruth and VHS students pose for a picture during her presentation
Valley High Schoolers listen to Ruth's life story.
VHS students talk with Ruth after her presentation on WWII
A map of Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia.
Ruth stands in her Valley home.
Ruth's parents were featured in VTN during a past visit.
A young Ruth during first communion.
A wedding picture of Hans and Bertha Ringel on their wedding day.
Hans, Bertha and a young Ruth
Ruth handles her father's encyclopedia's which her mother carried with them when exiled.
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“I was born in the Czech Republic. At that time, it was called Czechoslovakia, on the third of January in 1941. I am 83 now.”
Ruth Shaw, nee Ringel, sat in an armchair in the front room of her home in Valley, as she recounted her life. She spoke with, sometimes, surprising honesty about her experiences growing up in the middle of one of the worst events in human history.
Despite the hardships endured, Ruth speaks with no bitterness in her voice. Instead, she is quite matter-of-fact, occasionally interrupting a story to offer soda or cookies, not unlike any other grandmother. The familiarity of the interaction contrasts with its uniqueness, especially in this neck of the woods.
Czechoslovakia (The Sudetenland)
Ruth grew up in a part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland in a small village about 50 kilometers away from the German border. The Sudetenland was settled by Germans 300 years before in an effort to develop the sparsely populated portion of the country, according to Ruth. Ruth and her ancestors grew up as Germans. They spoke German, and they were German citizens, with German passports and birth certificates.
The region traded hands frequently, making it a diverse and geopolitically complex area. In 1939, Sudetenland, Bohemia and the rest of the Czechoslovak Republic would be put under Nazi rule. Before then, the area had been under various rules, predominantly the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. As a result, the general kinship Sudetenlanders had was to Austria, or a Sudetenland autonomy, rather than Germany or the Czechoslovak Republic, according to a Manchester University Press Book, “The Muchich Crisis, Politics and People.” However, by 1944 almost 18% of Sudeten Germans would be members of the Nazi Party, making the area one of the most pro-Nazi areas of Germany at the time.
“We were German citizens in the Sudetenland, we never became Czech. That was just the way it was set up, you know, and everybody spoke the German language. Some people learned both languages. My grandmother spoke Czech very well,” Ruth explained.
Blissfully unaware of the events that were creeping toward her small village, Ruth’s early memories of her home were happy ones. The family’s apartment was occupied by her mother, Bertha Ringel; aunt, Ana; and grandmother, Marie. Her father, Hans Ringel, and uncle Frank had both been called up to the German army, the Wehrmacht, which was under the rule of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party. The only part of her father’s job during the war that Ruth knows about was that he was assigned as a chauffeur for a Nazi general during the early years. He and her mother had been postal workers before the war.
Of the Holocaust, Ruth said her mother did not know of the atrocities being committed by the Germans at the time. When Ruth asked her mother many years later, the woman said she only found out after the war, since the family was secluded in the small Czech town.
However, she did not see her father for the first two to three years of her life, as he was enlisted from 1939 until the end of the war. The sole memory of the man from that time was when he came home on leave in 1943. Ruth said he was in their small garden and called up to her mother to send Ruth down with his cigarettes so he could smoke.
“I had the little pack of cigarettes in my hand, and he looked at me and he said, ‘Come here, come here and give me my cigarettes’. And I would take two steps. And then I would not go further,” Ruth said. “I was afraid of him….because I did not know him.”
Later, Ruth’s mother would tell her that while he understood, it broke his heart. That was the last time Ruth would see her father until 1948.
Ruth does have a memory of one man in her hometown. Her family’s apartment was above a bakery, and the baker was one of the few men of age who was not drafted. Instead, he was tasked with baking bread for the German army and people.
“So I had no men around me except this older man, the baker and [his wife]. They adored me,” Ruth smiled.
Besides the cigarette incident, most of Ruth’s memories were of sledding with her mother or the scent of carnations at the nursery across from her house in her small Sudetenland town. However, when the Allies closed in on Germany, the young girl became more aware of her situation. With Sudetenland being on the eastern side of the country, they were confronted with the Russians.
“They wanted to destroy Germany because the German army destroyed so much,” Ruth said honestly.
As the war was ending, the German citizens in Sudetenland became unwelcome in Czechoslovakia.
“There was some very hard times for us because the Czechs started to hate the Germans,” she said. “They did not want us to be there anymore.”
Young Ruth became more and more aware of the dangers and fighting around her. Food rations were low in the village, and Ruth remembers the feeling of hunger. However, she said the baker always made sure the family had enough.
“Then, we started to fear for our life … the [Czechoslovakia Republic] even made us wear white armbands when we went outside so that they would recognize who is German,” Ruth said.
She recalls having to go into the building’s bunker during nearby bombings with her family, the baker and his wife. The group would put the child in a huge bread basket he used to unload all the loaves he made in the mornings. Her mother would put feather beds on top and below her, and she would wait in the basket until the sirens signifying the end of the bombing would wail.
Another concern was the Russians, who had begun arriving in her village.
“It was getting tougher and tougher for us to survive in a way without fear and the uncertainty of what was going to happen to us,” Ruth said.
The women would hide in the attic, a more secretive hiding place. As is horrifyingly common in wartime, some soldiers would come into villages and assault and rape the women. Both Axis and Allied engaged in instances of sexual assault, but Ruth added the Germans were the worst offenders. She had memories from the attic, huddled in the corner with the women of her family, but had to later confirm the stories with her mother that they were in fact true.
“I do remember hearing from next door some of the screams of the women if they found them,” Ruth said. “They caught on where those women are hiding. Of course, you know, it didn’t take long. For some reason, we were blessed [to not be found].”
A pivotal memory in Ruth’s childhood, and one of the last in her Czechoslovakian home, was of the Dresden bombing. Their village, not far from the German border, could see the firebombing of the city during three days in February 1945.
“One night, I remember my mother standing at the window and looking outside. It was in April or May. And she looked outside and all of a sudden she turned around and she said to me … Come, [Ruth] come I want you to see the sky is burning,” Ruth said.
Ruth was put on a footstool with her small arms leaning against the window sill. She said the sky was an endless red and orange.
“I don’t hold [the bombings] against them, or I wouldn’t be here. They were in their right because Hitler’s started this mess and you know, if they wouldn’t have gotten this over with, there was no telling what would have happened,” Ruth said.
Soon after, Ruth recalls the women in the house were frantic because they got a notice that the Germans would be expelled from the Sudetenland and resettled in Allied-controlled Germany. Ruth and her family were officially refugees.
The Friedland Refugee Camp
The family had three days to pack and were allowed only 200kg of luggage to take. Ruth smiled remembering how her mother was adamant about taking her foldable baby bed, refusing to let the four-year-old sleep on the floor. She also brought her husband’s collection of encyclopedias, although she would not know if or when she would see her husband again.
The next few months of her story were relayed from Ruth’s mother primarily, although Ruth does recall the Germans in her village walking to the center of town together with their belongings. Ruth’s mother sewed their savings into the young girl’s coat to avoid detection on their journey.
The Sudetenlanders were taken on trucks to the train station and loaded on a freight train. Ruth’s family was put into a cattle car with around 90 other people. There were no seats and small partitions in the corners functioned as bathrooms.
Ruth remembers the three-day journey on the train, with very little food. They received one bowl of watery soup and a small slice of bread per day. Flour was scarce at the time, so it was mixed with sawdust to make the bread. The “butter,” although Ruth said it was certainly something else, made the girl sick, and she would spit it out.
After three days on the train, the Sudeten Germans were taken to a large refugee camp in Friedland. They were brought into large barracks with 900 other people, Ruth recalled. Her mother was prohibited from putting together the baby bed she brought with her, so she slept on the cots.
The women of the family lived in the barracks for around six months, awaiting news of where they would be placed. During this time, Ruth became very sick, so sick her mother did not think she would survive due to the low medical rations of post-war East Germany. She slowly recovered and the women learned they were going to be placed in Russia-controlled East Germany, on a farm between Dresden and Leipzig.
East Germany
At the time, refugees were often resettled in large German farmhouses, which had extra rooms. By law, owners with extra rooms were required to take refugees. Ruth said she was thankful the farmers who took them were kind. Occasionally they would give the women milk from their cows. Rations were in place, but Ruth recalls the constant hunger they experienced.
“My grandmother would always watch when the farmer’s wife would come out. She had a big barrel, and she would dump some of the boiled potatoes that were not eaten for dinner that night. Even potato peels or stuff like this… After she saw the woman go back in, my grandmother went out and got it out.”
She can remember her grandmother rinsing potato peels that she had gotten from the barrel and were meant for the pigs on the farm. She boiled them for so long that they were soft.
Other rationed goods were coal and wood, necessary for cooking and heat in what was the coldest German winter in 150 years, Ruth said. Locals had learned that freight trains had to stop nearby, often carrying coal. However, the short trains were guarded by two armed guards who would patrol the length of the cars.
“My aunt was always very courageous… It was like nine or 10 at night, my aunt would climb up on top [of the train] and my mom would stay on the bottom my end would grab the pieces of coal and throw them down,” Ruth said shoveling hypothetical coals with her hands. “The whole time my mom had to look where is the guard? Is he coming?… They did work as fast as they could, and they both carried that sack and ran home, and we had some extra coal.”
The guards soon caught on that locals were stealing from the trains, and the late-night missions became more dangerous. That is when Ruth would join them to act as look-out while her mother shoved the coal into the sack. The bounty would heat the single room the four women slept in. When they went without, Ruth said they would sometimes wake up with frozen saliva on their face.
Ruth laughed at the point in the story when she recalled saying she helped her family steal coal from a group of high schoolers during a presentation at Valley High. The students were apparently surprised by the octagenarian admitting to robbery.
“But I said to them, ‘You have never known called any kind of hunger, any kind of losing your house or your apartment. When you hurt and when you are so hungry and when you are so cold, you don’t care if it’s a sin to go and steal some coals or not,’” Ruth said.
After living in East Germany for around a year, Ruth’s mother got into contact with the baker they had lived above in Czechoslovakia. He and his wife had settled near Frankfurt and had enough space for Ruth and her mother in American-controlled West Germany. While they were sad to leave her aunt and grandmother, the mother and daughter exited to live in the American zone. Ruth called it, “heaven” compared to East Germany.
West Germany
Once they arrived in a town called Friedberg, Bertha would go regularly to the Red Cross Office asking if Ruth’s father was alive. It had been over two years since the war ended.
“All of a sudden one day a letter came to our address. It said that they had found my father, and my father was captured by the Americans in 1945 in Holland.”
Hans Ringel would be a prisoner of war of the Americans from 1945 to 1948. He would be transported from Holland to Belgium and be put to work in a coal mine there. Ruth’s father spoke of this time without bitterness, saying the Americans fed him well, and he learned French while in Belgium.
Ruth’s uncle, Frank, had an even more unlikely story. He was captured in North Africa near the end of the war and also made a POW of the Americans. He was shipped from North Africa to New Orleans. There he worked on a plantation picking cotton for a year. He was then moved to Texas working on a different farm, and then to San Francisco, finally returned to Germany in 1947 on the farm where his grandmother and aunt lived.
When Hans returned to the family, Ruth said it was like the cigarette instance. It was hard to warm up to the man she had barely known. Slowly but surely, the pair bonded. Soon after his return the reunited family moved out of the baker’s house and applied for a new refuge, another farm. However, the owner was not as kind, initially refusing the family. Because the law mandated the farmer must take in the Ringels, he relented, but not before some bad blood was started. Once again, Ruth shared a single room with her family. Now nine years old, she was still sleeping in the baby bed. Her father had knocked out the footboard so the growing girl could stretch out.
After a few years, the family moved out of the farm and was able to move into an apartment of their own, secured through Hans’ postal service job.
“Every one of those six families that moved in [the apartments] were refugee families. And they all had children about my age. I loved it. I stayed there until 1960 when I met my husband.”
Bill Shaw was an American soldier stationed in Friedberg. He met Ruth Ringel at a friend’s wedding, an Army friend, who was marrying a local girl. He was the best man, and Ruth was the maid of honor.
Ruth’s parents were apprehensive, not because he was an American, but because he would take their only child far away, back to America. Hans only blessed the marriage if Bill agreed to extend his tour of duty, to show his commitment to Ruth. He did, and they married in Friedberg, and Ruth made another long journey to West Point, Georgia.
West Point
Bill was from LaGrange and worked in Lanett before being drafted in 1957. He returned to the same job, as a welder for Sims Metal Works. They moved into an apartment near where Lanier Insurance is now.
Ruth admitted coming to the same American border town was a culture shock.
“My biggest fear was that the war was over for 15 years when I came. But, I was afraid they would still say I’m a Nazi, where I never could have been a Nazi, I was too small,” Ruth said.
On the contrary, Ruth said people were incredibly welcoming to her and have been ever since. She said the only time she was called a Nazi was a few years ago, when she talked about being from Germany, and someone made a gesture imitating a Nazi salute and referenced Hitler.
Ruth said she was so shocked she did not respond. She would later confront the person and in time forgave him.
“I was stunned actually. Then I said, “Don’t you ever call me a Nazi again? You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ruth said.
Ruth said if she had been older and realized what was happening she never would have joined that “stupid Hitler.” She admits she found it hard to understand how her father stayed long enough to get drafted.
“He was such an intelligent man. He was not a novelty. But why did he not get away from there?… He should have seen what’s taking place,” Ruth said.
Although, she adds that is easier said than done, and the family did not know they would be exiled.
Besides that incident, Ruth wanted to make it clear how kind everyone has been to her in the Greater Valley area. One person signified that kindness above all others — Elsa Spear.
She had been pushing her newborn in a stroller as a bag boy from a West Point grocery story carried her bags. Hearing her accent he mentioned that there is another German couple living in the town. Ruth wanted to meet the couple, so the boy took her phone number and promised to pass the number along. The next day Elsa invited Ruth for coffee in her apartment.
“And it developed into a beautiful friendship,” Elsa said with emotion. “And she had a story to tell too.”
Elsa and her husband, Sigmund, had come to West Point in 1938 from Germany. They were Jewish. Elsa had lost her parents and other family members in the concentration camp.
“But you know, that shows. I was the bad guy. I was the German. She was a Jew. But she took me under her wings. I called her my second mother because she was as sweet as my mother to me,” Ruth said.
Elsa helped Ruth through the bad homesickness of the early years. The two would sit and drink coffee and talk about their home. Sigmund had been badly injured during WWI and had a facial disfigurement. He did not come out the first few times, not wanting to see new people often. But slowly, Ruth and him became friends as well.
When her parents visited, she was once again worried Elsa would not accept them, though she could understand, with her father being a former soldier. Instead, she demanded Ruth bring her parents over for dinner. Hans would rave about “the best chicken soup” he ever had at Elsa’s house. When her mother would visit, the two older women would talk for hours in Elsa’s kitchen. Her relationship with Elsa would be a touchstone for both women until Elsa’s death.
Not long after the newlyweds arrived in West Point, two big events happened; the 1961 West Point flood and Ruth learned she was pregnant with their first child.
“[The apartment] never seemed to get really good and dry,” Ruth said.
The odor and bugs were the worst part, especially with her morning sickness. They temporarily moved in with his family until the sickness passed.
Her first son, John was born in 1961, then her second son, Michael, was born in 1964. The family of four was able to buy a house in Valley the following year. Every so often, her parents would visit or they would go back to Germany. The Valley Times-News wrote a feature about one of their visits in the 1970s. And, life moved forward.
A couple weeks before what would be the couple’s 30th anniversary, Bill ended the marriage. He had met someone else at work.
“By then I was 50 years old, and that’s not the best age to start new again,” Ruth said. She said the divorce was very hard. However, she was able to stay in the house in Valley. Ruth got a job at JCPenney. She had worked for the West Point location for 10 years earlier in their marriage. She worked there for another 20 years, retiring at 70.
Today, Ruth remains active in the Valley Area. She regularly attends workout classes at the Valley Sportsplex. She is in multiple women and international groups in the area. She visits her sons, grandchildren and a great-grandchild.
Ruth has remained in her Valley house and has no plans on moving.
“I was very welcome in this country. I don’t regret coming here. I miss my country, of course. And the older I get, the more I miss it,” Ruth said smiling. “[My mother] always said an old tree you don’t transplant, so that’s what I am, an oak tree.”
However, one of her greatest joys for the German is to travel. She has gone back to Germany to visit old friends. In 2007, she traveled back to Czechoslovakia, to the village she was forced to leave. She found her old apartment, still standing. She didn’t go in. She and her friend, Gerheart, walked through the small village. Ruth pointed out buildings that had stuck in her memory.
“I said to Gearheart, my friend, ‘I wish there was somebody still here that I could speak to that they might have been around at this time,” she said.
The friends came across young women working in a garden. Gearheart, acting as interpreter, asked the woman in Czech if there was someone his friend could speak to. The young woman summoned one of her neighbors down to the yard. The neighbor was 90 years old and still spoke some German. She had lived in the village throughout the war.
“I gave her a $10 bill, and she didn’t want her take it. I said ‘It’s nothing much but I want you to have it. Just a little thank you for coming and talking to me,” Ruth said. “So I made her happy, and she made me happy.”
“She could remember the bakery,” Ruth said.
