"So sorry not to have mentioned it but when you receive this email we will have "shuffled off this mortal coil". The decision was mutual and without any outside pressure. We had lived a long life and together for almost 75 years. There came a point when failing senses, of sight and hearing and lack of energy was not living but existing that no care would improve."
"Born in Warsaw, Poland, Ruth Posner was a Holocaust survivor, dancer, choreographer, and actress who later became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. At just nine years old, she made a life-or-death decision to escape the Warsaw Ghetto using a falsified passport. She spent three years on the run with her aunt, posing as a Catholic schoolgirl. Tragically, the rest of her family were killed at the Treblinka extermination camp."
"They explained that, although neither was suffering from a terminal illness, their declining health had left them feeling that they were no longer truly living, but merely existing. We had an interesting and varied life and except for the sorrow of losing Jeremy, our son. We enjoyed our time together, we tried not to regret the past, live in the present and not to expect too much from the future."
Ruth Posner, 96, and her husband Michael, 97, traveled to a Swiss assisted-suicide clinic and informed family by email that they had "shuffled off this mortal coil." Neither suffered a terminal illness, but progressive declines in sight, hearing, and energy made them feel they were no longer living. They had been married almost 75 years and made the mutual decision without outside pressure. Ruth was born in Warsaw, escaped the Warsaw Ghetto at nine using a falsified passport, and spent three years posing as a Catholic schoolgirl while on the run. She later trained in dance and theatre and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Read at www.standard.co.uk
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