‘Ahead of Time’ highlights a remarkable life

By any measure, Ruth Gruber is a most remarkable woman.

She wanted to get a closer look at Adolf Hitler, so she pretended to be a German citizen so she could sit in the area closest to Der Fuhrer.

At 15, she was accepted at New York University. At 20, she became the youngest student to receive a doctorate.

In 1944, she escorted 1,000 Holocaust refugees from Naples to New York during a secret war mission.

Above everything else, Ruth Gruber was a journalist working mostly for the New York Herald Tribune. It was a career she carefully chose, even though her skeptical father said at the time, “What kind of career is that for a nice, Jewish girl?”

Bob Richman, who photographed the docs “An Inconvenient Truth” and “My Architect,” makes Gruber’s fascinating life story his directorial debut in “Ahead of Time.”

It’s a straightforward, traditional doc with talking heads, archival footage and interviews with Gruber’s friends and relatives. But what a subject he has to work with. (Read more…) Not rated; suitable for general audiences. 73 minutes.

Now playing at the Renaissance Place in Highland Park.

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