Ruth Jacobsen

Ruth Jacobsen (8 April 1932 - 19 February 2019) was a German-born lesbian artist and a Hidden Child of the Holocaust. During the Second World War, she fled with her parents to the Netherlands where she was hidden by the Dutch resistance until she was reunited with her parents towards the end of the war. Traumatized by the war, her parents both committed suicide. In 1953, she emigrated to the United States to stay with distant family and there became a textiles designer. Working as the first female film projectionist in New York, she helped create a training program for women entering that profession. Jacobsen increasingly devoted her time to art using family letters and photographs in order to cope with her childhood traumas. She is remembered in particular for her collage works centred on the Holocaust.

Biography Born in Frankenburg, Germany, on 8 April 1932, Ruth Jacobsen was the daughter of Walter Jacobsen and his wife Paula. Faced with the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis, the family fled to the Netherlands in 1939, settling in the village of Oud-Zuilen. In 1942, relying on the assistance of the Dutch resistance, they were forced into hiding but two months later Ruth Jacobsen was hidden away from her parents in various Christian families.