The "Grande Dame of Anti-Apartheid"
On the death of the journalist, writer and human rights activist Ruth Weiss
Born in 1924 to Orthodox Jewish parents in Fürth near Nuremberg, Ruth Weiss had to flee from the Nazis to South Africa as a young girl. There she experienced the apartheid regime. This made her a lifelong fighter for human rights. She passed away in Denmark on September 5 at the age of 101. She leaves behind around 70 books, including novels, children's books, and nonfiction works about southern Africa.
“Ruth understood how to turn even the difficult things in her life into something positive. She always saw the glass as half full rather than half empty.”
Says translator Lutz Kliche, who edited Ruth Weiss' autobiography almost ten years ago. The book is titled “Wege im harten Gras” (Paths in Hard Grass). And for good reason: Ruth Weiss' life was thorny. She was born Ruth Löwenthal on July 26, 1924, in Fürth, Bavarian Franconia. Her parents were Orthodox Jews. In 1936, Ruth and her family fled from the Nazis to South Africa. There, she experienced the exclusion of all non-white people under the ruling apartheid system.
Astrid Betz remembers well how Ruth Weiss used to say “I came from one false world into another false world—I couldn't help but become political.” Betz, curator at the Documentation Center Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg organized an event with Weiss for the first time in 2020. She was very impressed by the then 96-year-old.
“She was quick to grasp things, she was a good listener, she could express herself clearly. And there was her courage and commitment to calling a spade a spade.”
At first, however, Ruth Weiss leads a life in her husband's shadow. It is only after separating from her husband Hans, a journalist, that she experiences significant personal growth and professional emancipation. “She did everything, whether it was running the household or, if he couldn't finish his articles, writing them herself”, says curator Betz. “In this way, she gained so much experience that she was able to work as a freelance business journalist because she had the knowledge and expertise.”
Because her writing denounced racism in southern Africa, Ruth Weiss was expelled from South Africa and Southern Rhodesia in the 1960s. She then continued her work from London and Cologne. Back in Africa, she used her good relations with Nelson Mandela and other African freedom fighters, as well as with white South Africans, to bring the hostile groups together for talks during the early stages of the peace process.
“That was Ruth: she always put her own interests behind the cause.”
Says lecturer Lutz Kliche. Although Ruth Weiss leads a thoroughly secular life, her orthodox family and their way of living their Jewish faith remain a great support, an inspiration, and a source energy for her. In 2022, she will be officially appointed Honorary President of PEN Exile at a ceremony.
The event takes place in Courtroom 600 of the Nuremberg Palace of Justice. There, Nazi leaders were tried for war crimes. A special moment of satisfaction for Ruth Weiss, says Astrid Betz, who organized the courtroom for the celebration. “Julius Streicher, Gauleiter of Franconia, was also tried in Courtroom 600 and subsequently sentenced to death.”
Julius Streicher – known as the “Franconian Führer” – dismissed all Jews from public service immediately after the Nazis came to power and recommended that the private sector do the same. As a result, Ruth Weiss's father lost his job in 1933. With the help of relatives, he was able to emigrate to South Africa. In 1936, 12-year-old Ruth was able to join the rest of her family there, thus escaping the Shoah.
And then she says, “He saved our lives”, smiles editor Lutz Kliche, who accompanied Ruth Weiss on her month-long reading tour of secondary schools in Baden-Württemberg. He had to explain this sarcasm to the young people at their readings—not that they misunderstood it. “I often saw these questioning faces, so I had to say, ‘This is meant to be taken this and that way’.”
Lutz Kliche also collaborated with Ruth Weiss on her last work, entitled “Erinnern heißt Handeln” (Remembering Means Acting), which was published in August 2025, shortly before her death. Weiss uses her own biography to justify her core message: only if we reach out to one another, listen to one another, and engage in dialogue with one another will we be able to overcome the divides of hatred, rejection, and isolation and achieve peaceful coexistence. “In this new book, Ruth clearly states that the peace process in South Africa can serve as a model, or at least be relevant to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”, says Konrad Melchers who has known Ruth Weiss, honored as the “Grande Dame of anti-apartheid”, since the 1970s, when he was active in a solidarity committee for South Africa.
And Lutz Kliche adds, since October 7, Ruth Weiss has been very clear: What is happening in Gaza is unacceptable. The settlement policy in the West Bank is also unacceptable. But she also wrote in her book: “I was born Jewish, and I will be Jewish until the end of my life.”
This text is a translated transcript of my radio portrait in German public radio.
More on Ruth Weiss in an obituary in The Times of Israel.
Excellent reporting- as usual. Thanks. I