Ruth

Schwertfeger

Professor Emerita · Writer · Scholar

Exploring history through the lens of literature and the empathy of faith.

A lifetime of scholarship, memory, testimony, and storytelling — from Holocaust research and German-Jewish exile literature to the voices of Northern Ireland in The Wee Wild One.

Ruth

Schwertfeger

Professor Emerita · Writer · Scholar

Exploring history through the lens of literature and the empathy of faith.

A lifetime of scholarship, memory, testimony, and storytelling — from Holocaust research and German-Jewish exile literature to the voices of Northern Ireland in The Wee Wild One.

A Life in Literature, History, and Witness

Ruth Schwertfeger’s work moves across borders of language, memory, displacement, and identity. As Professor Emerita of German at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, her scholarship has centered voices often silenced by history: women in concentration camps, German-Jewish writers in exile, literary witnesses to trauma, and the enduring human need to remember.


Her body of work also turns toward home — the landscape, language, humor, faith, and cultural memory of Northern Ireland — in The Wee Wild One: Stories of Belfast and Beyond.

Professor Emerita

German, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

Scholar of Witness

Holocaust literature, exile studies, German-Jewish writing

Memoirist & Storyteller

Northern Ireland, faith, language, memory, and belonging

Major Published Works

A Nazi Camp Near Danzig: Perspectives on Shame and on the Holocaust from Stutthof

Year: 2022 hardcover / 2023 paperback

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic


A major scholarly study of Stutthof, one of the lesser-known Nazi concentration camps near Danzig/Gdańsk. Ruth examines the camp’s history, the role of German nationalism, the testimonies of victims, and the moral weight of shame in Holocaust memory.


Themes:

Holocaust history, Stutthof, Danzig/Gdańsk, shame, testimony, nationalism, memory

View Publisher Page

In Transit: Narratives of German Jews in Exile, Flight, and Internment During “The Dark Years” of France

Year: 2012

Publisher: Frank & Timme


A study of German Jews who fled Nazi Germany only to find themselves displaced, stigmatized, and interned in France during the Vichy era. Ruth explores how these individuals narrated their experience of exile, flight, and internment.


Themes:

Exile, Vichy France, German Jews, internment, displacement, literary testimony


View Book Details

The Wee Wild One: Stories of Belfast and Beyond

Year: 2004

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press


An impressionistic memoir rooted in Ballycoan, Belfast, family memory, faith, language, and Northern Irish identity. The work reveals Ruth’s gifts not only as a scholar of history, but as a storyteller shaped by home, humor, and cultural memory.


Themes:

Northern Ireland, Belfast, childhood, faith, family, memory, language, cultural identity




Read About the Book

Else Lasker-Schüler: Inside this Deathly Solitude

Year: 1991

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic


A literary and biographical study of Else Lasker-Schüler, one of the vivid figures of German Expressionism. Ruth examines the poet’s work through the lenses of poetry, gender, Judaism, exile, and artistic identity.


Themes:

German Expressionism, poetry, gender, Judaism, exile, literary criticism






View Book Details

Women of Theresienstadt: Voices from a Concentration Camp

Year: 1988

Publisher: Berg Publishers / Bloomsbury


A powerful collection and study centering the experiences of women imprisoned in Theresienstadt. Ruth brings together memoirs, poems, and testimonies to illuminate daily life, suffering, dignity, and witness from women whose voices must not be forgotten.


Themes:

Theresienstadt, Holocaust testimony, women’s voices, memoir, poetry, witness


View Publisher Page

A Nazi Camp Near Danzig: Perspectives on Shame and on the Holocaust from Stutthof

Year: 2022 hardcover / 2023 paperback

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic


A major scholarly study of Stutthof, one of the lesser-known Nazi concentration camps near Danzig/Gdańsk. Ruth examines the camp’s history, the role of German nationalism, the testimonies of victims, and the moral weight of shame in Holocaust memory.


Themes:

Holocaust history, Stutthof, Danzig/Gdańsk, shame, testimony, nationalism, memory

View Publisher Page

In Transit: Narratives of German Jews in Exile, Flight, and Internment During “The Dark Years” of France

Year: 2012

Publisher: Frank & Timme


A study of German Jews who fled Nazi Germany only to find themselves displaced, stigmatized, and interned in France during the Vichy era. Ruth explores how these individuals narrated their experience of exile, flight, and internment.


Themes:

Exile, Vichy France, German Jews, internment, displacement, literary testimony


View Book Details

The Threads That Run Through the Work

Voices That History Tried to Silence

Ruth’s work repeatedly centers people who were displaced, imprisoned, exiled, forgotten, or reduced to footnotes in dominant historical narratives.

Women, Testimony, and Witness

From Theresienstadt to broader Holocaust literature, Ruth’s scholarship restores dignity to women’s narratives, diaries, poems, and memoirs.

Exile, Flight, and Belonging

Her work explores the complex emotional and literary terrain of those forced to leave home while still longing for cultural and spiritual belonging.

“To remember is not merely to look backward. It is to restore voice, dignity, and human presence.”

German-Jewish Literature

Ruth’s scholarship contributes to the study of Jewish writing in German culture, including Expressionist poetry, exile literature, and post-Holocaust memory.

Shame, Memory, and Moral Imagination

Her later work asks how shame, denial, nationalism, and testimony shape how societies remember atrocity.

Ireland, Faith, Language, and Home

The Wee Wild One expands her body of work into memoir and cultural storytelling, exploring the language, humor, landscape, and faith of Northern Ireland.

Featured Scholarship

Stutthof, Danzig, and the Burden of Memory

In A Nazi Camp Near Danzig, Ruth Schwertfeger examines Stutthof within the broader machinery of Nazi nationalism and Holocaust violence. The work brings attention to a camp system that remains far less known outside Poland, despite the immense scale of suffering connected to it.

Historical Context

A concise explanation of Stutthof’s location near Danzig/Gdańsk and its place in Nazi history.

Literary Lens

Explain that Ruth’s scholarship uses archival, historical, and literary sources to bring victim testimonies into view.

Why It Matters

Frame the work as a contribution to Holocaust education, memory studies, and moral reflection.

Memoir & Audio Storytelling

The Wee Wild One: Stories of Belfast and Beyond

A deeply personal departure from Ruth’s Holocaust scholarship, The Wee Wild One invites readers and listeners into the world of Ballycoan, Belfast, family stories, school days, faith, language, and Northern Irish memory.


Now available as an audio experience, the work allows Ruth’s stories to live in a new format — intimate, accessible, and alive with voice.

Audio Entries

Preface

Chapter 1 — The Wee Wild One

Chapter 2 — All in the April Evening

Chapter 3 — The Actual Building

Chapter 4 — The Teachers and What They Actually Taught

Beyond the Books

“A Nazi Camp Near Danzig”

2022 Distinguished Lecture


University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee / Sam and Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies


A public lecture connected to Ruth’s research on Stutthof, Holocaust memory, and the historical silence surrounding the camp.

View Lecture Information

A Nazi Camp Near Danzig Interview / Book Conversation

Academic Podcast / Author Conversation


A conversation introducing the book’s themes, historical context, and contribution to Holocaust studies.



Listen to Conversation

“1944: Jewish Writing in German Continues in Theresienstadt and Beyond”

Yale Companion Contribution


A contribution to a major reference work on Jewish writing and thought in German culture.



View Reference Work

Review of The Unwanted: America, Auschwitz, and a Village Caught in Between

Holocaust and Genocide Studies Review


A later scholarly review that reflects Ruth’s continued engagement with Holocaust scholarship and memory studies.


View Journal Issue

“A Nazi Camp Near Danzig”

2022 Distinguished Lecture


University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee / Sam and Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies


A public lecture connected to Ruth’s research on Stutthof, Holocaust memory, and the historical silence surrounding the camp.

View Lecture Information

A Nazi Camp Near Danzig Interview / Book Conversation

Academic Podcast / Author Conversation


A conversation introducing the book’s themes, historical context, and contribution to Holocaust studies.



Listen to Conversation

Works Archive

  • Books

    ✔ Women of Theresienstadt: Voices from a Concentration Camp


    ✔ Else Lasker-Schüler: Inside this Deathly Solitude


    ✔ The Wee Wild One: Stories of Belfast and Beyond


    ✔ In Transit: Narratives of German Jews in Exile, Flight, and Internment During “The Dark Years” of France


    ✔ A Nazi Camp Near Danzig: Perspectives on Shame and on the Holocaust from Stutthof

  • Audio

    ✔ The Wee Wild One audio series

  • Lectures & Interviews

    ✔ “A Nazi Camp Near Danzig” UWM Distinguished Lecture


    ✔ A Nazi Camp Near Danzig podcast/interview conversation

  • Selected Chapters, Articles & Reviews

    ✔ Yale Companion contribution on Jewish writing in German in Theresienstadt and beyond


    ✔ Holocaust and Genocide Studies book review


    ✔ Additional items to be added after Ruth provides CV or publication list

About Ruth

Ruth Schwertfeger is Professor Emerita of German at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Her scholarship spans Holocaust literature, German-Jewish writing, exile studies, women’s testimony, and the relationship between literature, memory, and moral imagination.



Born in Ballycoan, Northern Ireland, Ruth also brings a deeply personal voice to her memoir work, especially in The Wee Wild One: Stories of Belfast and Beyond, where history, faith, language, family, and home converge.

Connect with Ruth

For inquiries related to Ruth Schwertfeger’s books, writings, lectures, scholarship, or The Wee Wild One audio series, please use the contact information below.

Email: sword@uwm.edu Phone: 262-327-1558

Professor Emerita · Writer · Scholar

© Ruth Schwertfeger

Professor Emerita · Writer · Scholar

Exploring History through the lens of Literature and the empathy of Faith

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