The Legacy of the Late Ruth Gruber Lives On

I keep a Google Alert on for my old friend and longtime author, the humanitarian and photojournalist Ruth Gruber (1911-2016), as I still enjoy seeing mentions of her and her many accomplishments when they come up in media, as they still do with some frequency. One such item popped up yesterday.

I was tickled to see that one of the refugees Ruth helped rescue and escort to America on the Henry Gibbons ship in 1944—as related in her book Haven: The Dramatic Story of 1,000 WW II Refugees and How They Came to America, and in the 2000 CBS mini-series “Haven,” with Natasha Richardson playing Ruth’s role—has celebrated her 101st birthday. As reported by journalist John Benson in this Cleveland[.]com article,:

“Liberated by the British in 1944, Musafia, her mother and sister were one of 1,000 women and children selected by Ruth Gruber, per instructions from President Roosevelt, to be relocated to the United States.

Sadly, while her father escaped the Nazis by fleeing to Hungary to live with his sister, he eventually died in a Russian prison.

In Haven, there is a census printed at the back of the book listing the names of the refugee passengers on the Henry Gibbins. I took a photo of the census and include it here for the record. On the fourth line down from the top left, it shows that Gordona (spelled Gordana in Benson’s article) Milinovic (Musafia being her married name) was born Jan 2, 1922 in Yugoslavia, thus confirming the content of the story.

In 2000, “Haven” was adapted for a TV movie with Natasha Richardson playing Ruth Gruber. That year, I published a trade paperback edition of Haven with a Foreword by Ruth’s niece Dava Sobel, author of the bestseller Longitude.

A hearty happy birthday to Gordana Musafia, who’s lived her long life thanks to Ruth Gruber, and the USA who brought her out of war-torn Europe.

If Ruth Gruber is a new name to you, I invite you to read some of the other posts on this blog about her, and view some of her photographs, like the ones below, of refugees embracing, and a photo of Ruth from a different period in the 1940s when she worked for the FDR administration in Alaska.