The Redhead of Auschwitz. A True Story

by Nechama Birnbaum

Do you know why our Temple was destroyed? We destroyed it by destroying ourselves. We are all one, but we didn’t know that, and we ripped each other apart and by doing so we ripped ourselves apart. We may seem different, but I am you and you are me and we are all part of each other. We are all part of God, living within Him. We have to know that!” “What does Tisha B’Av have to do with that?” “All destruction comes from thinking about others as different than you. To be cruel to someone, you cannot think of them as yourself. So, we make them a stranger in our eyes. As if we don’t all have the same blood in our veins, as if we don’t breathe the same air. No one can be cruel unless they really view someone as different but that rips the world apart. We cannot be different. We are all part of the same God. We are never alone.” “And that is why the temple was destroyed?” “On Tisha B’Av, not only was the Temple destroyed. On Tisha B’Av it is the day that all evil came into this world. And yes, in the time of the Temple, we were destroying ourselves from the inside.

Yocheved, one of the cousins living in the house, tells me about a gentile woman who used to work in a Jewish home and knows how to cook and make everything kosher. She takes me to meet her. Her name is Wiig Nani, and she gives me a warm hug when I ask her to teach me to cook so I can feed all the survivors who come to Yitzchak’s house. “Of course, you beautiful girl,” she says to me. She wraps her steady arm around my shoulder, and I hold back my tears. “Come,” she says, “let’s go to the market.” Yitzchak makes good money from his salt business, so I can buy a chicken, some vegetables, a duck, and some eggs. My instructor shows me how to make the chicken kosher, how to make the cholent, how to make the letcho1 and how to make the kugel. I go to her every day to learn. Soon enough I am cooking huge pots of food for all the people coming in. I watch them as they gulp it all down with appreciation.

Our new family offers to put together a wedding for Yitzchak and me. I go to a store and rent a wedding dress. It is not the gown I always dreamed of, but it is beautiful. I do not have enough money to buy a veil, so I get my hands on some lace and I sew one myself. Everyone in the camp comes to the wedding. My heart aches for Leah, we haven’t heard from them in so long. I write to Duvid when we can get a hold of stamps, but he hasn’t heard from her either. I can only hope that they are OK. Yitzchak stands under the chuppah waiting for me. As a young boy plays the flute, a kind older couple from the camp walk me down the aisle. Yitzchak looks nervous. I think it is hard for him to let himself be happy. He feels it is his fault that his parents died. I know he wishes they were here now under the chuppah with him. Still, as I walk down the aisle to him, and into our life together, I feel nothing but pure joy in my heart. After we are married, I look around at the group of strangers I’ve grown to love, and I watch them dance for us. My Zaidy does not take my hand and spin me around like he promised he would. My mother does not fix my hair and bring me a drink when I need it. Yecheskel does not tell my husband to be good to me. I look around my wedding celebration and suddenly I feel a sadness that threatens to pull me down into the empty spaces of everyone who is not here. But then someone opens a window, and the room fills up with more guests. I hear the faint sound of birds...

“Life He requested of you And you gave it to him Length of days Forever and ever.” Psalm 21:4

When she was 41 with 4 children, my grandmother unexpectedly got pregnant again. Due to complications, the doctor told her that it was unlikely that her pregnancy could be successful. “If you have this baby, I will eat my hat,” he said. “Dr.,” said Rosie, in her trademark stubborn fashion, “you better start chewing.” She put herself into bed and a few months later she gave birth to a beautiful, redheaded baby girl. That daughter grew up to have nine children, the third of which is me.

As I write this now, the redhead who promised herself that she was going home has 5 children, 28 grandchildren, 120 great grandchildren and 7 great, great grandchildren.

When I look at my own two girls, I see the spark of life from my grandmother who promised herself, “I am going home.” When they dance, when they learn something new, when they look at the flowers in bloom, when they play on the beach and laugh with excitement as the sand sinks beneath their feet and the waves come to tickle their toes; I think of a redheaded girl who pushed with all her might to live. I am so happy and grateful that she did. Above all, I am grateful to God for letting us live this beautiful life, because while there is hardship, pain, and sadness, there is also beauty, happiness, and love. We cannot always prevent the bad, but we also cannot let it overshadow the good.

As immigrants, they struggled to find themselves, to restore their culture, and to make a living. My grandmother fought paranoia for her entire life, and my grandfather was racked with guilt because he survived while his family didn’t. My mother said she used to watch her father rock back and forth with his face in his hands, as he bore the responsibility of so much sorrow on his shoulders. Actually, as I write this, it is the day before the anniversary of his death. I know his soul is at peace and I hope he knows how much I love him. My grandmother lived a hard life, like King David did. There wasn’t a day in her life that she forgot what happened to her. But somehow, like the 11-year-old girl she once was, she still opens the window and sings. The world sings back to her and tells her that everything is going to be OK.

People speak of forgiveness, but it is not for us to forgive. Forgiveness belongs to the six million Jews who gasped for air, who were shot into mass graves, who were shot into rivers, who were abused, violated, and embarrassed—it is their choice to forgive, but they are forever silenced. While they cannot speak, we can speak for them. Instead of speaking of forgiveness, we can speak of remembrance and revenge. The greatest revenge we can inflict is to have tolerance and kindness for ALL peoples, all those that Hitler so strongly stood against. Hitler, who did not kill six million Jews by himself. Evil does not only happen when a person is abnormally bad. Evil happens when good people do not see the good in other people. Evil happens when we judge each other. Evil happens when we put ourselves higher than others. Evil happens when we stand by someone else’s evil and do not speak up. I did not want to write this book. It was painful to hear the horrors of what my grandmother went through. It was hard to deal with the biggest of all questions, “How did God let this happen?” I wanted to let the past stay buried with the past. But I know that knowledge is power. My grandmother always told me, “They can take everything away from you, but they can never take away what is in your head.” I know the past shapes the future and I also know, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”