Defying the Tide

A Book by GEFEN PUBLISHING HOUSE

Ruth Abraham and Maria Nickel would never have met each other if it hadn't been for the Shoah. But when Hitler turned Germany into a cauldron of anti- Semitism, Maria Nickel decided that morality and ethics were more important than even life itself.


This story of unbridled compassion made world headlines in May 2000 in Berlin Germany when

Ruth, then 87 and recovering from heart bypass

surgery, met her friend Maria, 90, for the last

time.


In 1942 Ruth, eight months pregnant, and on

her way to certain death, was stopped by a

German woman in a gray coat who offered her

food, saying, Take this. It's the Christmas

rations for Germans. I can't have Christmas

with my family knowing that you are carrying a

baby and don't have enough to eat. Their long

and arduous journey together reached its climax

when Maria and her husband gave their identity

papers to Ruth and Walter and with it the precious gift of life.


Reha Sokolow, the daughter of Ruth and Walter, tells the story of her parents' escape from death

using the voice of both Maria and Ruth so that the reader begins to understand the many levels of

fear, trepidation, and love that was an integral part of the lives of both the savior and the saved.