Rut Wermuth was born in 1928 in the small town of Kołomyja, Stanislawowskie in eastern Poland. She was born to Jewish parents who ran a delicatessen in the center of the town, and kept a comfortable middle-class household. Rut had two older brothers- Pawel and Israel (nicknamed Salek). Though Rut's formal education was interrupted by the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 and the German invasion of Poland in 1941, the books that her brothers provided inspired a lifelong love of reading, and later influenced her career path.