Overview

• Ruth Posner, 96, and Michael Posner, 97, emailed family and friends to say they had ended their lives at a Swiss clinic.
• Neither had a terminal illness, and they wrote that age-related decline and a wish not to be separated after nearly 75 years of marriage prompted the choice.
• They used the Pegasos clinic near Basel after Dignitas in Zurich declined to assist without a doctor’s confirmation of a prognosis under six months.
• Tributes from the Campaign Against Antisemitism and the Holocaust Educational Trust highlighted Ruth’s testimony and extensive Holocaust education work.
• Posner survived the Warsaw ghetto, later joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, received a BEM in 2022, and a close friend said the couple had planned their decision well in advance.