Renate Rubinstein

Renate Ida Rubinstein (November 16, 1929 in Berlin – November 23, 1990 in Amsterdam) was a German-Dutch writer, journalist and columnist.

Rubinstein was born in Berlin, Germany, to a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother. Following the rise of Nazi Germany the Rubinstein family decided to leave the country, and fled to Amsterdam, from there on to London, Switzerland and eventually back to Amsterdam again.

Following the Battle of the Netherlands, when Nazi Germany invaded and conquered the Netherlands in 1940, Rubinstein's father was arrested. He was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp near the end of World War II. This event was a determining factor in Rubinstein's life and work - she is said to have spent the rest of her life searching for a father-figure, and her bond with German-British sociologist Norbert Elias has been explained by some as proof for this.

During her teen years Rubinstein was a pupil at the Vossius Gymnasium in Amsterdam, but was sent away. For a time she worked three days a week at the publishing company G.A. van Oorschot, and lived together with jurist Willem Frederik van Leeuwen. Next she worked at a kibbutz in Israel for three years, and studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem for an additional two years. Because of that experience she was accepted as a student in Political and Social Science Studies at the University of Amsterdam in 1955. During her study - which she broke off after two years - Rubinstein started her career as a writer, first writing for the Nieuw Israëlitische Weekblad (New Israelite Weekly) and Propria Cures. Later on she wrote for Vrij Nederland (Free Netherlands, weekly magazine), Het Parool (national newspaper), the national daily NRC Handelsblad, the monthly magazine Avenue, Hollands Weekblad (Holland Weekly), Hollands Maandblad (Holland Monthly) and the literary magazine Tirade. In 1966 she was forced to pay a fine for her involvement in protests against the German Claus von Amsberg, who was about to marry princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, although she publicly changed her mind about him for the better later. She was even asked to write a book about the crown prince Willem-Alexander when he turned 18. In 1968 Rubinstein played an important role in an attempt to rehabilitate the Jewish collaborator posturing as a resistance fighter, Friedrich Weinreb.

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