Family Story Finder
The sweep of family history across the generations
Action at a distance
Stan's Mathematica notebooks document his later work and speculations
Escape from Berlin—last good chance to get out
Our reconstructed timeline: How Elly and Helga Ringel were smuggled with SS escort out of Germany and across the Belgian border in October 1938
Helga at the Theodor Herzl School
Amid the chaos of the Nazi period, the Zionist school in Charlottenburg taught skills and values that lasted a lifetime
Just so—how the Rubys got their name
When and why did Walter Rabinowitz take on our abbreviated last name? He may have gotten the idea during intermission at a Bronx nickelodeon
Mössbauer man—Stan makes his mark in physics
Stan's innovations in Mossbauer spectroscopy.
Motives for mercy—the consuls of Toulouse
In July 1940, consular officials from three nations conspired to open an escape route for Jews out of occupied France. Why did they do it?
Ratner family passage to America
Abe Blokh became Abe Ratner to avoid conscription and get out of Russia. With his young wife and her mother, they voyaged from Bremen to Leeds to New York
Sputnik in the backyard
Watching Sputnik at night from our back yard in a suburb of Pittsburgh is one of my earliest memories.
The peculiar case of Pinkas Twiasschor
The estranged husband of Betty Ringel was one of the 1000 war evacuees who found safe haven in the only U.S refugee camp
The physics experiment that went wrong
How and why did Stan Ruby's important post-graduate research go wrong, and what impact did it have on his career in physics?
The problem with anti-ballistic missiles
Stanley Ruby entered the public debate over nuclear missile technology in 1968-69.
The Rubys in Israel—1961 sabbatical
Our family’s amazing year of discovery and connection