My wife was dumbfounded that I read the entire book in three sittings over just three days. You have no idea what my daily reading of world events consumes of my daily routine! I don’t usually have the time or the inclination to read an entire book, but Rosie’s story and the authors’s ability to shift to the horror from the nostalgic was especially artful and powerful.
The Redhead of Auschwitz is a story of a heroic Holocaust survivor who lived through the worst obscenity ever tolerated by human civilization. Yet, the Redhead’s own exquisite loyalty, her unyielding courage and indomitable faith inspires us to still believe in the decency of humanity. Hitler lost and the Jewish People out lived him proving, once again, that despite every effort to destroy us throughout the millennia, we remain an eternal people embraced by G-d.
—Rabbi Meyer H. May, Executive Director, Simon Wiesenthal Center
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Nechama Birnbaum has written a very moving and heart wrenching account about her redhead grandmother’s life growing up in Crasna, Romania and her experiences in back breaking work in a brickyard, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, the Duderstadt ammunition factory, Theresienstadt and DP camps. Her testimony honors the memory of family members who were murdered by the Germans, and demonstrates how, against all odds, she survived.
“The redhead who promised herself that she is going home,” leaves an incredible legacy of 5 children, 28 grandchildren, 120 great grandchildren and 7 great, great-grandchildren.
—Alex Grobman, PhD
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The Redhead of Auschwitz was a difficult book to write but not so to read. Rosie Greenstein’s granddaughter captured the experience of her grandmother and drew so close that she was able to write in her voice. The result is a powerful work that traces Rosie's experience from the lively family life of her youth, to the German invasion of Hungary, ghettoization, deportation, arrival, Auschwitz and the daily struggle for survival. No one survived Auschwitz without luck but Rosie is able to describe the many ways she defeated death by wit and wisdom, determination and an iron will. She was one of the very few who entered the gas chambers and returned. She was more valuable to the Nazis alive than dead. We follow her through the death marches to liberation and the return and catch the briefest glimpse of her life afterward. Each chapter begins with a verse from Psalms chosen with such great sensitivity that we see how Psalms can accompany us all the days of our life from the depths of anguish to the heights of joy, from the darkness of humanity to majesty of human kindness and our Creator. An important story told with grace and love!
—Michael Berenbaum, Professor of Jewish studies