Ruth Kluger

Ruth Kluger (1931–2020) was a literary scholar, memoirist, and a professor emerita of German at the University of California, Irvine. She previously taught at Princeton University and the University of Virginia, and was a guest professor in Gottingen, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe. As the author of five books of literary criticism, she also studied English literature, obtained a master’s degree in 1952, and a PhD in 1967. Dr. Kluger survived internment at Auschwitz, fleeing a death march in 1945, eventually immigrating to New York, and beginning her lifelong work in academia and writing. After an accident-related days-long coma, Dr. Kluger was moved to recall long-repressed memories of the war, which served as the impetus for her memoir, Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered.