Johanna-Ruth Dobschiner

Johanna-Ruth Dobschiner ("Hansie") was born in 1925 in Berlin to Dutch parents of Jewish descent. Due to the rise of Nazism, her strict Orthodox Jewish family moved to Amsterdam in the late 1930s. She was the only member of her family to survive the Nazi regime's persecution, having wandered for years across the Dutch territory, hiding in homes that supported those living in hiding. After the war, she moved to Scotland, where she trained as a nurse. There, she met her husband and had twin daughters. She worked tirelessly to promote relations between Christian and Jewish communities and was a regular speaker at meetings and conferences worldwide. Despite battling cancer for 18 months, she passed away on August 13, 2002. The BBC produced documentaries about her experiences, the last one in 1989. Her book, titled "Selected To Live," was published in multiple languages and has seen numerous reprints.