The Redhead of Auschwitz. A True Story

by Nechama Birnbaum

My village, Crasna, is on the border between Hungary and Romania and the two countries fight for us like toddlers fighting for a toy.

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If music is the language of the soul, then dance is the way my body speaks to those souls from here on earth.

“What is wrong with freckles?” he asks when we are far enough from the egg man. “Everyone knows they are ugly,” I say. “Why are they ugly? I like them.” “You are just saying that.” “I am not! They are like stars scattered on your face, as if your face is the sky when it gets dark.”

“He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me,” I mutter to each petal as I pick them off, one by one, and drop them to the ground. My heart sinks: the last petal that remains lines up with my turn to say, “He loves me not.” How can this be? I crumple the flower and pick another one. “He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. He loves me not.” I don’t stop picking until I get to a flower that tells me what I want to hear, “He loves me!” “He loves me!” I say as I pull the last purple petal from the yellow center. See? I knew he did.

The sky is the face of a woman who has finally stopped crying, drained but calm.

I don’t mind going out into the cold morning. There are snow prints to make!

I need this perspective again.

I wrap my arms around him and give him a huge bear hug. He hugs me back and pats my head and I revel in that moment of being completely and wholeheartedly understood.

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“A man walks into a bar with his pet bear and says, ‘Do you serve Hungarians?’ ‘Yes, sit down, what would you like?’ the bartender asks. ‘A beer for me and two Hungarians for my bear.’”

“We lost a great man today,” he says, “a man that could not find a bad thing to say about anyone and who always had a reason as to why someone may have done things in a certain way.

Hitler, who did not kill six million Jews by himself.