{"id":47451,"date":"2025-08-29T01:51:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T08:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=47451"},"modified":"2025-08-27T13:48:01","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T20:48:01","slug":"rutas-closet-reissued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2025\/08\/29\/rutas-closet-reissued\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruta\u2019s Closet reissued"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lady Esther Gilbert speaking at Vancouver City Hall April 8, when Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim proclaimed Ruth Kron Sigal Day in the city. (photo by Keith Morgan)<\/i><\/p>\n

Ruta\u2019s Closet<\/i>, the Holocaust narrative of the late Vancouverite Ruth Kron Sigal, is being reissued for a new generation of audiences \u2013 and the book\u2019s author is ensuring the survivor\u2019s inspiring story of survival and resilience reaches the widest possible global audience.<\/p>\n

Vancouver journalist Keith Morgan, who completed the book shortly before Kron Sigal\u2019s passing, at age 72 in 2008, has updated the publication \u2013 and created an extensive range of multimedia projects to expand the impact of the written volume.<\/p>\n

\"image<\/a>First issued as a fundraising initiative for the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, Ruta\u2019s Closet <\/i>was later published in the United Kingdom, with distribution there reaching new audiences.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The book recounts the harrowing survival story of the Kron family, imprisoned in the tiny Shavl (\u0160iauliai) ghetto in Lithuania, through the eyes of the youngest daughter, Ruta (later Ruth). Their survival against Nazi persecution hinged on the courage and resourcefulness of her parents, Meyer and Gita Kron, as well as the bravery of non-Jewish rescuers. Depicted with novel-like narrative power but rooted in rigorous research and eyewitness testimony, the memoir vividly portrays atrocities such as mass murder, a Nazi ban on Jewish births and the deportation of children to Auschwitz, while also shining a light on courage, compassion and human resilience amid the evil.<\/p>\n

Kron Sigal didn\u2019t live to see the book in print but she saw the final draft.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said to me shortly before she died, \u2018You are going to carry on telling my story, Keith, aren\u2019t you?\u2019 And I said, of course I am,\u201d Morgan told the Independent<\/i>. \u201cSo, I took that on as a mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

Surveys indicating widespread ignorance of Holocaust history, combined with skyrocketing antisemitism, motivated Morgan to launch a series of Ruta\u2019s Closet<\/i>-related projects.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe updated the book and decided it was time to go basically worldwide with this,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to the re-release of the hard-copy, Morgan and his small team of colleagues recorded an audiobook and released an ebook. They revamped the existing Ruta\u2019s Closet<\/i> website and made it more interactive.<\/p>\n

Working with Bill Barnes, a local radio producer, Morgan developed a 25-segment podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are doing Zoom interviews with people around the world who are a part of a driving force behind an imaginative, creative initiative in spreading Holocaust awareness and education,\u201d he explained. \u201cI\u2019ve got Ruth\u2019s kids \u2013 Michael, Marilee and Elana \u2013 each week doing an introduction for book clubs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The VHEC has produced a downloadable guide for book clubs, as well as a teacher\u2019s guide to the book, which makes it additionally relevant as British Columbia\u2019s education curriculum mandates Holocaust education this year for the first time as part of the Social Studies 10 coursework.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe beauty of it, for British Columbia, is it\u2019s technically a local story,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cIt\u2019s about Ruth. It\u2019s about somebody who came here and did a lot for her adopted society.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Journalist Keith Morgan, author with Ruth Kron Sigal of Kron Sigal\u2019s memoir, Ruta\u2019s Closet, is ensuring that her story of survival and resilience reaches the widest possible audience. (photo from Keith Morgan)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Morgan, who spent many years as the crime reporter at the Province newspaper<\/i>, met Kron Sigal when his editor asked him to take on a more uplifting assignment and begin a series about people doing good works at home and abroad.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody said, \u2018Oh, you should talk to Ruth Sigal,\u2019\u201d who was sharing her Holocaust story with students. \u201cI went to meet her. I was very impressed. She told her story and it had an amazing impact on me. I just knew this was an important story to tell.\u201d<\/p>\n

He found immediate support from Dr. Robert Krell, the founding president of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRobert Krell kind of took me under his wing \u2013 he was a close friend of Ruth \u2013 and he said, \u2018I\u2019ve got just the guy to introduce to you, who will be really helpful to you for pulling the story together.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The person was renowned historian Sir Martin Gilbert.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe British schoolboy in me thought, \u2018How do I curtsy?\u2019\u201d Morgan joked.<\/p>\n

Morgan met Sir Martin in London and got a one-on-one master course in writing about the subject.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe looked me right in the eye and said, \u2018You have to tell the story as though you were writing it for your newspaper and make it accessible to all people,\u2019\u201d Morgan recalled. \u201cSadly, Martin died [in 2015], but Lady Esther Gilbert took up his mantle and, since then, she\u2019s been an ally and was very important in this edition in terms of going through it, adding bits here and there.\u201d<\/p>\n

She spoke at a ceremony at Vancouver City Hall on April 8 this year, when the mayor proclaimed Ruth Kron Sigal Day in the city.<\/p>\n

Kron Sigal\u2019s story resonates profoundly with people, according to Morgan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can all relate to what happened to Ruth and her sister Tamara,\u201d he said. \u201cIt also tells us compelling stories about how, through their own devices, they basically survived and helped others along the way. We also see what other members of the family did to help the broader community.\u2026 We get this family story, which, in itself, is very dramatic, but we also get this wider picture of how a community in the ghetto work with each other, help each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morgan sees Kron Sigal\u2019s narrative as an inspiration not only because of her survival against the Nazis but in all she did after becoming a Canadian.<\/p>\n

\u201cRuth came here, an adopted country, and spent 25 years at the Women\u2019s Resource Centre and the VHEC Child Survivors Group,\u201d said Morgan. \u201cThat\u2019s an example to everybody: come into a new society, an adopted country, and just roll up the sleeves and get working. Isn\u2019t that an example to anybody that comes in?\u201d<\/p>\n

No less a triumph, Morgan said, is the family Ruth and her husband, Dr. Cecil Sigal, created.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou look at that family and you think, \u2018Victory!\u201d he said. \u201cBecause they beat Hitler.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lady Esther Gilbert speaking at Vancouver City Hall April 8, when Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim proclaimed Ruth Kron Sigal Day in the city. (photo by Keith Morgan) Ruta\u2019s Closet, the Holocaust narrative of the late Vancouverite Ruth Kron Sigal, is being reissued for a new generation of audiences \u2013 and the book\u2019s author is ensuring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[974,2901,3076,24269,53,24270,4526,8704,6875,4349,24267,24268,597,2364],"class_list":["post-47451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-books-2","tag-ebooks","tag-education","tag-esther-gilbert","tag-holocaust","tag-martin-gilbert","tag-memoir","tag-multimedia","tag-podcasts","tag-robert-krell","tag-rutas-closet","tag-ruth-kron-sigal","tag-vancouver-holocaust-education-centre","tag-vhec"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}