Would You Look Away? A Family’s Attempt to Escape Nazi Germany & the Cost of Being a Bystander with Ruth Stitt

Would you look away? Ruth E. Stitt is an author and licensed counselor whose family’s preserved letters from Nazi Germany reveal how persecution can unfold gradually, how difficult escape can become, and what happens when ordinary people decide whether to remain bystanders or stand up. In 1938, Ruth’s grandmother in Bridgeport, Connecticut received a letter from relatives in Berlin desperately searching for a way out of Nazi Germany. What followed was five years of correspondence filled with hope, fear, bureaucracy, attempted immigration, love and devastating loss. In this conversation, Ruth and Lisa go beyond the question, “Why didn’t they just leave?” They explore the financial, legal, political and emotional barriers Jewish families faced while trying to escape, the psychology of denial as danger slowly becomes normalized, and what fear and grief do to human beings under extraordinary pressure. They also talk about the choice that can remain when nearly everything else has been taken away: how we respond, who we love and whether we are willing to speak when someone else is being dehumanized. In this episode: • Holocaust history and life inside Nazi Germany • Jewish refugee immigration and the barriers to escape • Family letters documenting persecution as it unfolded • Denial, fear, grief and psychological survival • Why “Why didn’t they just leave?” misses the complexity of displacement • Choosing love when control has been stripped away • Turning documented family history into historical fiction • The difference between a bystander and an upstander • Moral courage, dehumanization and the responsibility to speak • Letting go of perfection, overachievement and the need to always have the answer Content note: This conversation includes discussion of the Holocaust, persecution, forced displacement, psychological trauma and profound loss. Connect with Ruth E. Stitt: https://scripturecomesto.life Find Ruth’s books on Amazon by searching Ruth E. Stitt. Connect with Lisa Lacy: https://lisalacy.com What did you perform in order to survive? Welcome to the Edge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.