Dr Ruth Westheimer

Dr Ruth Westheimer0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Dr Ruth Westheimer0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is a sex therapist. Born in Germany in the late twenties, her Jewish family sent her out of the country as the Nazis rose to power. They stayed behind and perished.

Presenter0:40

After living in Israel and studying in Paris and New York, she eventually took American citizenship.

Presenter0:46

Then, ten years ago, she emerged from obscurity and became a national celebrity. On radio and later on television, this unemployed college lecturer in her early fifties offered explicit but common sense advice on sex and its problems. Her warm, frank, and often funny style has made her famous in France, Germany and in Britain. She is doctor Ruth Westheimer.

Presenter1:10

Doctor Ruth, you're even on occasions compared with Freud, I think. Does that make you smile, or does it secretly please you? Secretly, of course, it pleases me when they call me Grandma Freud. It is very interesting because I think it has to do with my accent particularly. After all, I'm not Austrian, I'm of German Jewish descent. But people sometimes think in terms of the psychology. They then think, ha ha, it must be Sigmund Freud. So your accent is part of the secret of your success. What else is it, do you think? What is it about you that struck that nerve in the American public and made them want to come to you with their problems? I was very fortunate. I am very well trained. I have all of the academic credentials. I have the clinical experience by now. But I also believe strongly that it is because I'm an older woman. I'm going to be sixty two this year.

Presenter2:08

I am short, four foot seven.

Presenter2:12

Uh I do have a big smile. I can talk about these issues of sexuality with humour. But most importantly, you don't threaten them, is that what you're saying? By your appearance, your voice, or anything. I'm not threatening uh not to men and not to women. That I think is an important uh part of it. I'm really like a little aunt who uh has the fortune to know about these things and can talk about it. Right, we shall talk some more about them, but let me ask you first of all about you.

Dr Ruth Westheimer2:35

And error?

Presenter2:46

Being cast away on a desert island, because you're obviously a very gregarious, very effervescent character. Could you bear the silence and the loneliness? Oh, my I think I would be very unhappy.

Presenter2:58

So you will have to promise me at least to send some Royal Air Force from time to time to check on me. But since I know I can take some things with me, like some music and some books, I hope I will survive.

Presenter3:17

I am a survivor because I survived Nazi Germany.

Presenter3:21

I survived being badly hurt and wounded in the war of independence in Israel.

Presenter3:29

And I'm in general a th I do think of myself a survivor. So when I have that image of that desert island, I say to myself, Sue, I'm going to survive that one too.

Presenter3:42

Right. What's the first record that you'll want to play when you've got a test?

Dr Ruth Westheimer3:45

And the first

Presenter3:51

actually accompanied me throughout my life. Despite the fact that I was so persecuted by Nazis, there is something in the culture, despite the fact that I became an orphan, that is deep rooted and I do love Mozart.

Presenter5:00

The Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Mariner, playing part of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

Presenter5:07

Ruth, you were born in Frankfurt, I think. Was it a wealthy family? No. It was a lower middle class family. They were very orthodox.

Presenter5:16

Uh my father did uh recite the prayers. I did recite the prayer every single evening and every morning. The Jewish festivals were celebrated. So it was um a warm, loving background that um I was then cast out uh from one moment to the next. Because you were you were very small, weren't you, when Hitler came to power. What about five or six? Yes. So when did you become aware that that life was getting difficult for Jewish people? You see, I did not feel any anti-Semitism myself.

Dr Ruth Westheimer5:43

Yeah.

Presenter5:54

Except on that night right after the night of broken glass, the night of Kristallnacht.

Presenter6:02

when uh my father was being picked up.

Presenter6:06

A very early one morning

Presenter6:08

and put on a track. No violence, but you could see that the Nazis who had uh picked him up were very firm.

Presenter6:17

And I do remember looking out the window and seeing my father um being pushed onto a truck. Did he see you? Yes, he turned around and uh he uh with a faint smile waved. And that was the very last time that I did see my father. Did they not try to stop it? Yes, my grandmother tried to give the Nazis some money.

Dr Ruth Westheimer6:35

My mother and my

Dr Ruth Westheimer6:37

Did they not

Dr Ruth Westheimer6:38

Yes, Mike

Presenter6:43

I remember that she carried that money in a long skirt in the seam of the skirt. But of course I don't even remember if they took it. But what I do know is that my father was taken.

Presenter6:56

So I don't know if they took the money by her asking take good care of her only son.

Presenter7:03

Um nobody realised then.

Presenter7:07

Uh what the horrible things that would happen. But do you think that your your mother and your grandmother then expected that night that your father would return at some point, that he'd just been interned for the moment? Absolutely. Because at that time nobody knew about any concentration camps. And at that time they knew already about labor camps. So they thought this is a temporary happening.

Dr Ruth Westheimer7:17

Absolutely.

Presenter7:29

And uh that because they told me I know that they thought that because they told me.

Presenter7:35

That I have to join the transport into Switzerland.

Presenter7:40

of a children transport, because it became clear after the conference in Avian in thirty eight that German Jewry was in trouble. That's how they told me to go to Switzerland.

Presenter7:53

Let's pause there and have your second record. What shall that be? My second record is a song that all of you know, and it makes me have tears in my eyes. It's Old Lang Sign, because in Switzerland I did see a few of the British movies, like Mrs. Miniver, like Waterlo Bridge, and it made me so sad because sometimes there were scenes of separation, of men going into war, and sometimes there were scenes of finding each other again. And when they sang that song, it was at the same time sad and at the same time hopeful, especially when it talks about friendships.

Speaker 48:47

Right there.

Speaker 48:58

Hey goes well

Speaker 49:01

A quiet ship.

Presenter9:11

Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians, and Old Lang Syne.

Presenter9:15

Say, Ruth, you say you were sent away to uh Switzerland. This was six weeks after your father had been taken. Do you remember that day very clearly that you went?

Presenter9:24

I will never forget that day. It was on january fifth, nineteen thirty nine.

Presenter9:29

and my mother and grandmother went to the railroad station to wave goodbye.

Presenter9:34

And I do remember that they were running.

Presenter9:37

In order to get another glimpse of me, I thought I'm going to Switzerland for six months.

Presenter9:44

that after the six months they would come, pick me up, and we would go someplace else, whichever country would take us. What did you take with you? How much did you take with you? Very little. I guess um they did not know what would happen.

Presenter10:00

So the only object

Presenter10:03

that um really went with me was a doll.

Presenter10:07

And I gave that doll to another girl in the children's home, which then became an orphanage.

Presenter10:14

And I took one washcloth.

Presenter10:17

You have no memento of almost no memento, luckily.

Speaker 210:18

So I had almost

Presenter10:21

I had pictures.

Presenter10:23

Those pictures were very important, and I of course have the letters that were sent to me.

Presenter10:30

because of the sadness and because of what happened, I held on to those letters that were still sent to me until nineteen forty one, like for dear life. I was going to say, how long did they keep coming? Nineteen forty one, that was two. Yes, until they were sent to then

Dr Ruth Westheimer10:46

Until

Presenter10:49

Litzmannstadt, which was like a ghetto, and from there they were transported further east and from what I can gather to Auschwitz, even so I do not know. You don't know what happened to your family. Have you tried to find out? Yes, I've tried to find out, and in some books

Presenter11:07

I have just about two months ago.

Presenter11:09

found a book where they listed my father and grandmother dying in uh the ghetto, which made me a little bit pleased, because at least they didn't have to go through the horror of a concentration camp. Also the maternal grandparents. And uh my mother I have not found any trace.

Presenter11:34

Is it possible to say, a as a psychologist, how that terrible experience has affected you in your life? How are you different from that which you might have been because of your experience?

Presenter11:45

I think what it has permitted me

Presenter11:49

to do is to have a tremendous empathy of suffering for other people.

Presenter11:56

without it making me uh depressed, because in the early childhood years this jwade vivre, this lust for life, has been given to me. But I do uh understand what it means to go through difficult times.

Presenter12:15

Record number three, I think. Record number three, this is Beethoven's Symphony Number Nine, because all through my life this is one of the things that I always hummed and sang with the words Freude Schoener Gottefunken, which is jwa, which is joy.

Speaker 412:36

So the big bandy busty blue wish and

Speaker 412:42

All the men to make them free.

Dr Ruth Westheimer13:05

This is

Speaker 413:32

I don't know what

Presenter13:38

Part of the final chorus, The Ode to Joy, from Beethoven's Symphony No. Nine, with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Sir Colin Davis.

Presenter13:47

You are, Doctor Ruth, as you were saying, very small, four foot seven, I think you said you were. I presume you were tiny as a child, too. Di did that upset you? Did you get picked on? Yes. But sometimes I got picked on in a good way. They gave me candies, they played, everybody played with me. But I did in my adolescent years, I was really thinking, my gosh, nobody is ever going to take me seriously because I'm so short. And I'm very glad to report that my son, Joel, he's

Presenter14:25

Way above my head. And my daughter is taller than me. Let's move on in your life, because after six years at that Swiss orphanage, you eventually went to live, I think, on a kibbutz in Israel. And then when you were nineteen, you joined the the Jewish underground army. What was in your mind then? What did you want to achieve? It wasn't an act of heroism.

Presenter14:46

My participating in the underground. We all did. But it was an act of being very conscious that you have to stand up and be counted, because coming out of Nazi Germany, that's another message that I learned. You have to stand up and be counted for your beliefs.

Presenter15:07

So I in nineteen forty eight at the age of twenty on my birthday

Presenter15:12

I was very badly wounded by a shrapnel of an Arab bomb that fell into the girls' residence where I lived in Jerusalem.

Presenter15:24

I was very fortunate because in that hospital in Jerusalem.

Presenter15:29

While Jerusalem was under siege.

Presenter15:32

Luckily a wonderful male nurse took care of me. I can still see his face. That helped me. Being in the hospital, being very upset, having to learn how to walk again. But here was this wonderful male nurse who had studied medicine in Romania but worked as a male nurse.

Dr Ruth Westheimer15:53

Yeah.

Presenter15:54

And it certainly had me. I think it would be an understatement, uh reading about you, as I have been, Doctor Ruth, to say that men have been really quite important in your life, haven't they? Absolutely.

Presenter16:05

When I went to Paris, because then I got married.

Presenter16:10

and went to Paris.

Presenter16:13

In the beginning in Paris I had to pinch myself.

Presenter16:18

By saying, Look at this, I'm at the Sorbonne.

Presenter16:21

At the University of Paris. I am at the Comedie Française. I see a plays by Molière.

Presenter16:30

I sometimes had to say

Presenter16:32

Is that really happening?

Presenter16:34

And this was very interesting because this was so unexpected. I did get married, and we are still good friends to the first man who ever offered to marry me.

Presenter16:46

Because of what I told you. Short and uh thinking that I'm ugly. We are still good friends, even though we did separate after Paris. Let's have your fourth record there, shall we? That fits into Paris. I loved the romantic songs, especially by Mulluggi, who was short.

Presenter17:06

Muluji is a short singer, but the song he sang compeptikoklico. I love that song, it's a love song.

Speaker 217:15

I love that Muluji.

Speaker 217:17

Tab testrés unmais voila, constored tout comprendra.

Speaker 217:28

La promière foi, je jelevu, et le d'orremais, amoi tieneu Dans la dumiero de l'Été au beau milieu da champs de boulais. Moulogi singing Comen Pouti Coco.

Presenter17:50

Yeah.

Presenter17:50

Eventually then, Ruth, in your late twenties you applied for what was called a Nazi victim scholarship in in New York to do sociology, I think. Yes. So you could speak English by then, could you? No. Uh by now I know I knew German, I knew French, I knew Hebrew, in between those two. I couldn't speak a word of English, but I could read it. But at the new school I learned English very fast. I'm very fortunate that I can learn languages.

Presenter18:19

and I went for a master's and then I was alone. I had married again for a very short period of time a very good looking Frenchman, and had my daughter Miriam.

Speaker 218:31

Ugh.

Presenter18:31

and raised Miriam for five years four years actually by myself. One dollar an hour. I first went as a housemaid. Then I was fortunate I worked at the French embassy a dollar an hour.

Presenter18:45

And so I now also know what it means to live in that fancy, rich America with no money. So by the age of thirty you'd been married twice and you'd had one child.

Dr Ruth Westheimer18:52

I mean

Presenter18:57

Then you met your third husband, mister Westheimer. Sking. And he's still around? Yes. He passed the test, did he? He certainly did. Now what did he have that all the others didn't? I think the major ingredient is that we do come from a very similar background. He also is German Jewish.

Presenter19:15

Um except he was very fortunate. His parents were smart enough to emigrate in in nineteen thirty eight, before World War Two, to Portugal. And then he was sent to the United States, so he also lived a little bit a refugee life. So we do speak English with each other, but when I get angry, Sue, I can I can speak German with him. And how tall is he? And he is taller than me. Everybody in the world is taller than me, but not too tall.

Presenter19:48

So, this has been a relationship, first of all, of maturity.

Presenter19:53

And uh

Presenter19:54

Then after a year our son Joel was born, and so that has been

Presenter20:00

Very important in terms of recreating.

Presenter20:05

Um all of those values and those beliefs and those morals that I did not have for a whole lifetime. And he has, Mr. Westheimer, I think, found a way of of getting round the question that he must be asked all of the time, which is what is it like to be married to Doctor Ruth, the woman who talks about sex? Yes, you know what he says? He says the shoemaker's children don't have shoes. He's say so I don't let him come with me to London, because he would say to you, Sue, don't listen to her, it's all talk.

Presenter20:36

But it's not all talk, really. Of course not. Let's have record number five there. What's that? Now that one I love, Schubert's Unfinished, because that theme that is repeated was a whistle that many of my friends and I used in Israel, because in Israel there was no telephone.

Presenter20:56

And when you wanted to call somebody up on the third floor, that's what we whistled.

Presenter22:02

Part of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony played by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Sir George Schulte.

Presenter22:08

So Ruth, ten years ago life changed dramatically for you. You got your own show on the radio answering sexual problems. How how quickly did it rise in the ratings? What happened? It was amazing because I made a presentation to a group of broadcasters saying that we have the knowledge, we have the scientifically validated data about human sexual functioning. We have a lot of problems in the United States, of unwanted pregnancies, of ignorance. I said in order to make people sexually literate, we ought to have a program on the air. I did not think that it ought to be me.

Presenter22:46

Listen to my accent. I've never done any broadcasting, but NBC Radio gave me a quarter of an hour. Buried after midnight

Presenter22:56

From that it grew to an hour, then to two hours, and until last year it was two hours and it became actually international. And about five years ago,

Presenter23:07

Fred Silverman, who used to be President of NBC, asked me if I wanted to do a television programme. I said, of course, I'll try anything. I think one can understand people writing to you, certainly, and ringing in on the radio, which is a fairly anonymous business on the whole. But explain to me how it is that people can sit as they do on your television programmes, in front of a television camera with it zooming in closely on them, as they discuss their most intimate problems. On my programme, I'm not responsible for other people's programmes.

Presenter23:36

On my programme those people who talk about their intimate, most private matters of the bedroom are actors and actresses.

Presenter23:46

I would never have a real person.

Presenter23:51

that I would ask these questions. Now I do have sometimes celebrities and I have experts. I have experts from Yale, from Harvard, Columbia, from all over. And we discuss issues. If a celebrity like Bert Reynolds wants to tell me

Presenter24:09

about a woman that he's spent no names about a woman that he spent the night with

Presenter24:15

And is still wondering if she ever watches his movies. That's a different story. I'm not an investigative journalist. How do we compare here in Britain to the Americans? Do you think we're rather more uptight about such matters? You in Great Britain, interestingly enough, have more nudity in your newspapers. On page three in a family newspaper, there is an almost naked woman. We don't have that. What do you think of that? I think that if you combine the knowledge

Presenter24:48

If you say it is all right to talk about these issues, then the naked woman is fine. If, however, you say a naked woman is fine because it sells the newspaper, but let's not talk about sex education, let's not talk about issues that our next generation has to know, then I have a problem. Let's have some more music. Uh that is from an opera, also by Mozart. I really do love Mozart and it's the magic flute, the Der Vogelfenger Binische.

Speaker 426:05

Okanee throw to see sign and hide and bring as if your mind.

Presenter26:18

Wolfgang Brendel singing the Aria Der Fogelfenger Binischa, from Mozart's Magic Flute, with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Bernard Heitink.

Presenter26:28

You mentioned, Ruth, the ethics of Page Three pinups. You must have considered the ethics of your kinds of programme. What what do you say to the accusations that you and the broadcasting company are exploiting sex in your way, using personal problems to titillate the audience?

Presenter26:44

What I am saying is, what I'm doing is very ethical.

Presenter26:49

Because I hope, and I'm not the only one, I always want to say that, that with programs like this, yes, there is no question that nothing is as interesting as what people do in their bedrooms. No question. Yes, it's true that these things do sell, but if it's done in the way that it's educational and entertaining, I believe that it behooves us to do that because we have the data. You see, it says in the Jewish tradition in the Talmud, a lesson taught with humor is a lesson retained.

Presenter27:24

And are you quite sure that the uh the broadcasters, the people who employ you to make these programmes, that their motives are as altruistic as yours? S doctor Rud Westheimer, a professor now at New York University.

Presenter27:39

I don't mind what their motives are. I know their motives are the ratings, as long as nobody tells me what to do.

Presenter27:48

As soon as they would say to me

Presenter27:51

Dr. Rud Westheimer, you have to actually interview real clients, real patients. I would say thank you very much, and I would leave.

Presenter27:59

So their motives don't have to be mine. I only have to be interesting enough, entertaining enough.

Presenter28:08

and giving good information

Presenter28:10

In order to fulfil what I believe is the right way. Shall we have your next record there?

Presenter28:17

I love this song because it talks about the Jerusalem stone. The Jerusalem Stone is a heavy stone from the olden days, and for example at the Wailing Wall in the Old City.

Presenter28:31

In that sto out of the cracks of the stone, out of those stones that are being put on top of each other.

Presenter28:40

There are flowers that come out.

Presenter28:44

And for me that's very meaningful because that has something to do with World War Two, with the Holocaust, and with my life.

Dr Ruth Westheimer28:49

And with my

Presenter28:50

That out of ashes, out of misery, out of devastation.

Presenter28:56

That there is some survival.

Presenter28:59

Guolagil, Jerusalem of gold.

Speaker 429:02

Avir Harim salul Qayayin, Verekhoran, Nisabiru a khaar bayim, Inkolpa monim, Uve tarbe mat ilan ba'even, Shbuiya bakhalohuma, Hair Asher Badano Shevet, Ubeliba Khuma.

Presenter29:28

Geula Gill singing Jerusalem of Gold. And what, finally, Doctor Ruth, have you got out of this job which you created for yourself a decade ago?

Presenter29:37

Oh, my gosh First of all, I never have to worry again about money for the rest of my life And I'm really very fortunate, because here at my age of sixty two,

Presenter29:49

I have not only the recognition,

Presenter29:53

But I have a tremendous amount of gratitude from people, and I'm very grateful for that when people say you really helped me.

Presenter30:02

Thank you. Oh, you saved my marriage. That happens sometimes in my office. That helps me to withstand all of those criticisms that you have talked about, because I say to myself, really, I'm a fortunate woman. And I'm having a pretty, pretty good time. What it also means is, of course, a lot of people need you, and a lot of people love you. Perhaps that's also quite important to you. And especially since the deprivation.

Presenter30:30

in the early years because there wasn't much love.

Presenter30:33

Uh from the age of ten to sixteen the orphanage was rather loveless. Um we did have food and shelter, but we didn't have much care. So um all of those things that I'm getting right now, it's very nice. So what happens when because fame in the end is a fickle business, what happens when it all starts to fade away?

Presenter30:54

When this happens, and it can happen from one day to the next, I will say thank you very much. I've had a great time, but I still will keep up my private practice. I do not give that up. I will still do something. Who knows, maybe something else is going to open up.

Presenter31:13

Your last record, please. My last record is a very important one, Sue.

Presenter31:18

My son Joel, who went to Princeton as an undergraduate and was part of a little band, and he wrote and composed and plays a song for his sister's wedding. And I have to say I love my son-in-law. So all of us are very, very happy. And the song really talks about him giving this as a gift to his sister. whom he loves very much, she's six years older than him, and to his brother-in-law. And it talks, it is based on something of the Jewish tradition again that says, I'm to my beloved and my beloved is to me. Hasman Higia, the time has come.

Speaker 432:04

Moniki

Speaker 432:07

Attendant five.

Speaker 432:11

I need it odd

Speaker 432:22

I am to you my beloved and

Speaker 432:26

Oh what do you

Presenter32:35

Hazman Higia There Was a Time, written and played by Joel Westheimer.

Presenter32:40

So there you are, Ruth, sitting on your desert island, wondering which of these records to play next, when a wave comes along and washes away seven of them. Which one do you hope it's left behind for you?

Presenter32:50

My sense.

Presenter32:52

Because it involves my daughter and a happy wedding and everything else. Wonderful. And and a book. You're allowed a book. You have we give you the complete works of Shakespeare, and we give you the Bible. Is there a book you'd like to take too?

Presenter33:05

I guess what I'll take is Gun with the Wind.

Presenter33:08

I love that scale.

Dr Ruth Westheimer33:08

I la

Presenter33:11

And I love that Red Butler when I grow up. And also the other reason for that is it's a very heavy book, so at least I can read it over and over until you, Sue, will come and rescue me, or you will send that British air um the Royal Air Force to rescue me. I'm not sure I can, but we could try and persuade the RAF. You never know.

Dr Ruth Westheimer33:11

And I love

Presenter33:32

What about your luxury? You're allowed something to take with you, something that would give you great pleasure, great joy, or please your eye, but it can't be anything animate at all.

Speaker 433:41

Uh

Presenter33:41

Uh Not a man. No, no, no man. Not even one man. Not one man.

Speaker 433:43

Not even

Presenter33:45

All right, then I'll take Maron Glacsee. But a big box, please. Of maron glacis. Yes, I love them. We can promise you an endless supply. Yeah, but come and pick me up. Oil Air Force, come and pick me up.

Presenter33:58

Dr. Ruth Westheimer, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Dr Ruth Westheimer34:10

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.