H eadlines
Exponent Story Spurs Second Reunion of
Childhood Friends From Displaced Persons Camp
NATIONAL BY MARSHALL WEISS
Editor’s note: Last month, the
Jewish Exponent published an
article by Sophie Panzer about
the reunion of two friends,
Sasha Eisenberg and Ruth
Brandspiegel, who’d met at a
displaced persons camp in
Austria as children and hadn’t
seen each other in 71 years.

They were brought together
by chance, when one of
them heard the other’s name
mentioned during a High
Holidays Zoom service and
followed up.

When Ohio resident Ira
Segalewitz read the Exponent
story about the reunion, he
recognized Brandspiegel as his
childhood girlfriend from the
same DP camp, and so another
heartwarming reunion took
place — again, over Zoom.

The below article is an
excerpt from the Dayton Jewish
Observer’s coverage of the
second reunion; Segalewitz and
Brandspiegel will soon appear
on “The Today Show” to talk
about reuniting.

“RUTH, I’M GOING to call
you Regina,” Ira Segalewitz
said from his home in Kettering
when he saw his childhood
sweetheart for the first time in
69 years, via Zoom on Nov. 8.

“Call me whatever you
want, just call me!” Ruth
Brandspiegel quipped from her
apartment in Philadelphia.

The two 84-year-olds
— surrounded by their
children and grandchildren
across the eastern United
States on this Zoom reunion
— were last together in 1951
at a displaced persons camp
for Jewish refugees in Hallein,
Austria. “I kept thinking about you
for a long time,” Ira said.

“Really?” Ruth asked.

“I had the hots for you,” Ira
said. “At least somebody had the
hots for me,” Ruth replied.

For about 90 minutes, they
remembered and shared photos
they’ve kept from their time
in the DP camp, which they
described as heaven compared
with the horrors they and their
families endured because of
the Nazis and the Russians.

Their children and grand-
children heard some of these
stories for the first time.

“To me, what is so amazing
is all the pictures that you
brought with you from Europe
in such a bad time during our
history,” Flora Klein, Ruth’s
older daughter, said.

“For us,” Ira said, “that’s
the treasure. That’s what we
carried with us. The memories.

We didn’t have much else to
carry, but we carried that.”
Ruth and Ira’s reunion came
about after Ira read the Jewish
Exponent story that included
Ruth’s childhood name, Regina
Puter. “Finally, I got to the third
page and it had your picture,”
Ira told Ruth.

“And did you recognize
See Reunion, Page 19
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me?” Ruth asked.

“I recognized you right
away,” he said. “I came out and
Eva [Ira’s partner] said, ‘What
are you so excited about?’ I said,
‘That’s my first girlfriend!’”
Ira’s son Steve called Ruth’s
son Larry to make the connec-
tion. Larry called Ruth to tell
her, “Mom, your boyfriend is
still alive.”
“As soon as I said that,”
Larry said, “she was like, ‘My
heart is beating fast again, I’m
shaking again. Oh my God,
I can’t believe it, this can’t be
happening.” Ira’s oldest son, Scott
Segalewitz, said that after his
father spoke with Ruth by
phone Nov. 3, “the enthusiasm
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Israel ‘Srulik’ Segalovitch, now Ira Segalewitz, and Regina Puter, now Ruth
Brandspiegel, in recent photos and in childhood.

Screenshots courtesy Dayton Jewish Observer;
childhood photo from the collection of Ira Segalewitz
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NOVEMBER 26, 2020
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