Westheimer was born Karola Ruth Siegel on June 4, 1928, in Wiesenfeld (near Karlstadt am Main), Germany, the only child of Orthodox Jews Irma (née Hanauer), a housekeeper and Julius Siegel, a notions wholesaler and son of the family for whom Irma worked. She was given an early grounding in Judaism by her father, who took her regularly to the synagogue in Frankfurt, where they lived. In January 1939, she was sent to an orphanage in Switzerland by her mother and grandmother as part of the Kindertransport after her father had been taken by the Nazis. She stopped receiving her parents\' letters in September 1941. In 1945, Westheimer learned that her parents had been killed in the Holocaust, possibly at the Auschwitz concentration camp.\n', '

Westheimer decided to emigrate to British-controlled Mandatory Palestine. There, at 17, she "first had sexual intercourse on a starry night, in a haystack, without contraception." She later told The New York Times that "I am not happy about that, but I know much better now and so does everyone who listens to my radio program." Westheimer joined the Haganah in Jerusalem. Because of her diminutive height of 4 ft 7 in (1.40 m), she was trained as a scout and sniper. Of this experience, she said, "I never killed anybody, but I know how to throw hand grenades and shoot." Westheimer was seriously wounded in action by an exploding shell during the Israeli War of Independence in 1948, and it was several months before she was able to walk again.\n', '

In 1950, Westheimer moved to France, where she studied and then taught psychology at the University of Paris. In 1956, she immigrated to the United States, settling in Washington Heights, Manhattan. Westheimer earned an M.A. degree in sociology from The New School in 1959 and an Ed.D. degree from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1970.\n', '

Return to Dr. Ruth Autograph Profile