Actor and Shoah survivor Ruth Posner dies with husband at Swiss suicide clinic

“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.

“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.

“Much love, Ruth and Mike.”

Posner was an actor, writer and dancer, as well as a Holocaust educator, for which she was honoured with the British Empire Medal in 2022.

Born in 1929 and originally from Poland, Posner lost her entire family in the gas chambers at the Treblinka extermination camp, other than her aunt, with whom she escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto and went on the run for three years. At 16, she arrived in the UK, where she met Michael, a chemist for Unilever, whom she married in 1950.

Posner first became a dancer and then studied theatre in New York before becoming an actor at the Royal Shakespeare Company in London. She appeared in numerous films and TV programmes throughout her long career, with credits in Leon the Pig Farmer, Love Hurts, The Ruth Rendell Mysteries and Casualty.

One of her stage roles was 2014's Who Do We Think We Are, a re-enactment of her own experiences of the Holocaust. Posner initially did not talk about what she went through in Nazi-occupied Poland because she "didn’t want to be a victim" and she was "afraid no one would believe [it]" but she ultimately became known internationally as a vocal Holocaust educator.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism said it was "heartbroken" to learn of Posner’s death.

In a statement the group praised her for “educating future generations and never shying away from taking part in the fight against antisemitism”.

It also described her as “an inspiration and a shining example of how to use one’s voice for good in this world”.

Posner wrote several books, including three published in 2021; My Son The Addict (about her son Jeremy who died aged 37); The Third Stage of my Life and an anthology titled I Want To Die Laughing.

A friend of the couple, playwright Sonja Linden, who had known them for 30 years and had worked with Posner on Who Do We Think We Are, said: “This was a decision they made together some time ago that they wanted to die together.

“They made an arrangement to go to Switzerland a year ago. We did not know they had actually gone until we received the email, which is sad as we wanted to say goodbye.

“They had such a lovely flat packed with art and books and I can’t imagine them not being there.

“They were exhausted and felt that the time had come. They did not want to live without each other, so they decided to die together. They thought this was a positive decision and it helped them in their later life.

"I did not try to stop them. I understood and supported their decision, but it was still a shock to receive the email.”

They are survived by one grandson.