A review of The Redhead of Auschwitz

It is vital for families to share and pass on stories from their heritage. Sometimes those telling the stories can embellish certain details so that eventually one isn’t sure how to separate fact from fiction. But the story contained in the biography The Redhead of Auschwitz has no need whatsoever for artificial exaggeration. 

Nechama Birnbaum’s grandmother “Rosie” is the subject of the story—a red-haired girl in a Hungarian Jewish family. Birnbaum diligently documented Rosie’s story in remarkable detail before her grandma passed away in 2022. While the setting of a Nazi-run World War II concentration camp is used frequently both in works of fiction and non-fiction, this experience viewed through a wide-eyed artistic girl stands apart from the rest. 

Birnbaum intersperses two narrative threads, alternating by chapter. I imagine that many a reader may become impatient with this device, wanting to stick with one track over the other. In the case of The Redhead of Auschwitz, one track consists of Rosie’s memories from her childhood in the years before and during the start of the war. The other begins with the abduction of Rosie’s family and the other Jewish residents of their town by the German authorities (with many Gentile neighbors acquiescing or, far worse, cheering the soldiers on). 

Rosie sweetly recounts many details from her childhood, causing the reader to want to protect her from any adversity. Rosie enjoyed the traditions of daily life in her village and lamented that her sister Leah was more naturally gifted at domestic chores like sewing garments. However, there are some hard facets of life that one cannot escape. She mourned her beloved father’s passing and recounted the hard-working nature of her mother, pointing out her ability to stretch their meager supplies and at times share nearly all of her own food with her children.  

Rosie and Leah remained together among the horrors of Auschwitz and showed an indomitable spirit, resolving that they would survive the ordeal and return home. It would have been all too easy to fall into despair, but when one sister seemed to hit a wall and reach her limits, the other was there to spur her on. 

The story of Rosie’s survival of Auschwitz and liberation contains an interesting postscript as she made her way back to her hometown. Who would be left to welcome her? Presuming another family moved into her old home, where would she live? Would she ever learn the whereabouts of her loved ones from whom she was separated the previous year? Surviving the imprisonment was only one part of the story. How did the survivors piece their lives back together? Hovering ominously in the background is the growing influence of the Soviet Union, which by the next decade thrust Hungary and most of its neighboring nations into Communism. 

Rather than to divulge any more details, I invite the reader to investigate for oneself this touching and heroic tale. We pray that today’s victims of injustice, violence, and “man’s inhumanity to man” will know and receive an abundance of God’s mercy.