Nechama Birnbaum was in fifth grade when her teacher gave the class an assignment: Research and share a story that occurred during the Holocaust Nechama shared a story about her grandmother Rosie Young Rosie had been in Auschwitz only a few days when she was assigned to split huge boulders into pebbles She and her friends were starving; there had been little to eat in the Cehei Ghetto where they had come from and the watery coffee and soup they ate not only tasted like diluted mud Rosie and her family had been living in Crasna a small town on the border of Hungary and Romania a muddy ghetto built around the Klein brick factory where Rosie and her family were forced to carry heavy bricks across the yard where she was separated from her mother and younger brother — they were sent to the gas chambers and as she slammed her hammer into the boulder with whatever strength she was able to summon she looked at her friends and noted how different they looked without their hair and Chani said she imagined they were bound for the highest level of Heaven “You can go to Heaven from here if you want,” she told her friends This story encapsulates Rosie’s indefatigable spirit and her will to live even when faced with the most horrific aspects of humanity Nechama’s teacher asked her to share Rosie’s story with the principal The story left an indelible mark on Nechama and she never stopped marveling at her grandmother’s resilience and perseverance She’d always wanted to write her grandmother’s story She doesn’t remember a time when it wasn’t a dream But it wasn’t until her family took a trip to Europe in 2014 that she resolved to share her grandmother’s story with the world — a promise she fulfilled on November 28 when The Redhead of Auschwitz was published As she stood at the entrance of Auschwitz-Birkenau Nechama thought of the story her grandmother often retold — and was struck by the idea that they were there because of her grandmother’s will to live while her mother was expecting Rosie’s youngest brother Her brother Pinchas died when he was seven the result of an infection he contracted after stepping on a rusty nail supported the family by working as a cook for the local yeshivah Her mother was unable to attend — she couldn’t leave her job — but most of the town was there and Rosie and the rest of the town children looked forward to it each year she was immensely glad; she possessed a natural rhythm and she found the rhythm and beat in tasks as mundane as setting the table or drying the dishes Rosie’s performance in the festival was outstanding and it reached the ears of a dance master from Bucharest He came all the way to Crasna to try to recruit Rosie as his student and her zeide promised he’d dance with her at her wedding and Rosie drew strength from family — her mother and her sister Yecheskel was born shortly after Rosie’s father’s death She remembers how the shul was filled with crying as his name was given “Yecheskel was our comfort baby,” she said It seemed caring was a core part of Yecheskel; he was a child who wanted to take care of his family He’d give his portion of dinner to his mother He promised to take care of his mother and sisters as soon as he was old enough and he told them all of his plans to start a business He promised they’d have meat and books and a house with a fireplace Yecheskel accompanied Rosie as she went to the marketplace to purchase eggs for the family and asked her why she didn’t trust his goods Yecheskel asked her what was wrong with freckles “I think they look like stars,” Yecheskel told her Yecheskel came home with a brown paper bag and told Rosie Yecheskel had used some money he’d put aside and gone to the pharmacy to purchase freckle cream The pharmacist advised that application twice daily would eliminate Rosie’s freckles Chaya Necha arranged an apprenticeship for them with a local seamstress They discovered that Leah was a genius dressmaker After seeing Chaya Necha in a dress Leah made for her a local wealthy family commissioned the girls to sew gowns for the entire family for an upcoming wedding because not only did the family need gowns but they also needed new dresses for sheva brachos This job had a perk — the family owned a huge library Rosie and Leah were allowed to borrow books and then the group of girls would spend hours discussing what they’d read and sometimes the sadness in my heart feels like it will pull me down and bury me Rosie’s red hair was central to her identity regardless of who disliked it; it embodied her essence and spirit Her mother attempted to change Rosie’s hair to blonde as her mother would rub the oil into her hair “My grandmother wouldn’t let anyone tell her she wasn’t good enough,” says Nechama This kind of resilient thinking helped Rosie through her hardships Nechama is young to have grandparents who are Holocaust survivors but she’s the daughter of Rosie’s youngest daughter who was born when Rosie was in her forties Rosie’s doctor told her she wouldn’t carry the child to term but Rosie told him she would — and she did Nechama shares a close relationship with her grandmother Rosie seemed different from other grandmothers Her project about her grandmother’s survival story opened her eyes to what Rosie endured Nechama would join Rosie every Friday night and they’d sing Lecha Dodi together asked Rosie to tell her story while he recorded it on video Daniel reminded the family of the urgency of the project; Rosie wasn’t getting any younger He spent two years recording Rosie as she told her story Nechama transcribed the ten one-hour-long videos but these videos formed the foundation of The Redhead of Auschwitz which tells Rosie’s story in chapters that alternate between Rosie’s childhood in Crasna and the horrors she experienced during the Holocaust the Hungarian gendarmerie gathered the Jews of Crasna in the town square They told them to pack some clothes and leave their valuables Every time the family tried to build a makeshift tent out of blankets and clothes the Hungarian gendarmes would make them move and soon the meager supply of food Chaya Necha had packed ran out they were deported to Auschwitz where Rosie and Leah were separated from her mother and brother Even though their blockelteste told Rosie and Leah their mother was gone and she clung to the hope that they’d be reunited after the war’s end Rosie did everything to maintain her dignity in Auschwitz She grew up with this philosophy: Even though money was tight Rosie’s mother would import fine fabric from London to sew her daughters beautiful dresses Rosie would sneak out late at night to wash herself and her clothes She did the same for a friend who had covered her legs with oil-soaked rags she took from the factory where she worked When the blockelteste asked her to clean her cubicle Rosie noted the crumbs on the floor that remained from the bread the blockelteste had sliced for the inmates Although some crumbs were big enough to eat Rosie would not stoop to eat crumbs from the floor when the inmates were lining up to have numbers tattooed on their arms Rosie noticed the tattooist was inking large messy numbers Rosie switched lines to one where the tattooist was inking numbers in a straight If she was to have numbers forever inked on her arm Rosie and Leah were transferred to Bergen-Belsen and Rosie and Leah were shoved into a bare barracks — there were no beds and the girls had no choice but to sleep half-submerged in mud her crying ignited the cries of almost all the girls in the locked barracks From the sobs rose a voice singing Yossele Rosenblatt’s “A Yiddidshe Mamme.” Rosie would have recognized that voice anywhere who used to sing all the time on their grandfather’s farm Slowly the girls stopped crying and joined Faigy in her song the girls heard the Nazis standing at the door Following Rosie’s journey through the Holocaust took extensive research on Nechama’s part — she needed to independently corroborate the details Rosie told her and it was hard to estimate the time people spent in a place When Nechama asked Rosie how much time they spent in Cehei but it was really three weeks,” says Nechama She watched footage of documentaries where people from Crasna Living in Israel made some of Nechama’s research easier; she visited the library at Yad Vashem weekly and she often took her younger daughter along with her as she combed through books and documentaries Yad Vashem didn’t allow her to take any books home with her so Nechama took pictures of the relevant pages It was detective work — there were a lot of pieces to put together,” Nechama says Rosie had said she escaped from the gas chamber she had to verify it because Nechama had never heard of anyone who had done that she watched documentaries of survivors telling the same story Those survivors had been in Auschwitz the same time as Rosie where they were assigned work in an ammunition factory Determined to do her part to sabotage the Nazi effort she allowed a large portion of them to fall to the bottoms of the washing basin and she alternated between hallucinating and falling asleep at her post and threatened to hang her if her bullets fell short of her quota An older Nazi had seen what she was doing with the bullets and he told her that while he admired her bravery the older Nazi fished her bullets out of the basin and saved her from the wrath of the younger manager Rosie and Leah endured the Death March to Theresienstadt they were unable to retrieve it; the Nazis shot anyone who made that attempt the girls were locked into an underground bunker for a week Rosie left the bunker and walked outside together with the other girls The flowers had bloomed during the days they were locked in the bunker She never thought she’d see the sight of a field of blooming flowers again The field of flowers reaffirmed her earlier vow — that she had a life to live Rosie always refused to see herself as a victim sitting in a café with her daughter who was a baby at the time “I didn’t tell anyone I was doing this,” says Nechama I told them I was doing homework for college her Great-Aunt Leah’s children live in Israel and Nechama would often spend Shabbosim with them She even gave them a copy of her manuscript and when Leah’s family took a trip to Crasna to see where their mother and grandmother had lived and read the relevant parts at the appropriate places Nechama prefaced each chapter with a pasuk from Tehillim The combination of Rosie’s strength and her red hair made Nechama think of Dovid Hamelech “Dovid Hamelech refused to die,” says Nechama When she came to the chapter where Faigy sang “A Yiddishe Mame” to the crying girls She couldn’t find a pasuk to match the theme in the chapter when her Tehillim fell open to perek mem: “He raised me from the pit of raging waters Nechama believed many Holocaust stories were about those who died al kiddush Hashem Nechama wanted to tell her grandmother’s story Watching the current trend of growing anti-Semitism to tell the world to stop judging and stop hating just because people are different It was because of this that Rosie wanted a non-Jewish publisher to take her story but so many people don’t know,” Rosie says A sobering 63 percent of millennials and Gen Z do not know that six million Jews were murdered Nor did it seem there was much interest in changing those statistics When Nechama sought a publisher for her book she was told that Holocaust books don’t sell anymore but there is so much to learn from the past.” the rejections from publishers only strengthened her resolve; she was determined to find a non-Jewish publisher “We need good Orthodox representation,” Nechama says This is also why she includes Rosie’s childhood in her book with its combination of sweet and bitter memories Aside from showing how Rosie’s childhood and family gave her the strength to survive she also wants to demonstrate the normalcy of Orthodox life When Nechama realized the uphill battle she’d have not only getting her book published she decided to take matters into her own hands She started an Instagram account with her grandmother Nechama and her grandmother posted a reel that went viral “I was in the gas chamber and I’m here to talk to all of you Please bring unity in a good world for everybody.” Nechama says the response to her reel was overwhelming and it got word out about The Redhead of Auschwitz Catholic  schools and other non-Jewish schools have contacted her to come and speak about the Holocaust to their students without advertising — have wildly exceeded the expectation of her publisher who told her to expect to sell just 300 copies Rosie’s health took a turn for the worse after the summer and Nechama was afraid she wouldn’t see the publication of her story but it’s difficult; it’s hard to relive the trauma The Redhead of Auschwitz tells the story of Rosie’s triumph of survival Rosie’s family organized a book launch party It was a celebration for close friends and family “You should’ve seen Rosie at the book-launch party,” says Toby “She was holding up the book like a heavyweight fighter holds up his champion belt She kept holding it up and shaking it to the skies.” Nechama gave a copy of her book to her FedEx delivery person He read the book and was appalled by Rosie’s Holocaust experience “Even though I didn’t do it,” he said to Nechama “I want to say sorry because mankind did this.” Nechama says — for another human being to read my grandmother’s story and feel inspired to make a better world because of it Esther Shaindy LeshkowitzEmpty Nest, New AddressWhat’s it like to relocate once your children have left home Esther KurtzSame Job, Different Salary     A deep dive into the myths and realities of pay disparity between genders Zehava SieglerHope Unchained    An agunah is imprisoned in a life of unimaginable pain The get process — and those working to change it Shaina KovitzBlurred Boundaries  Our son’s rebbi was working to shape him — but in whose image Ariella SchillerJoint Forces How gedolim built marriages infused with loyalty Penina SteinbruchDon’t Mind the Mess… and Other Erev Pesach Mantras and MiraclesThe professionals who show up to help before Pesach share an unfiltered peek into our chaos, quirks, and kitchens Local authorities in Satu-Mare County reported severe flooding in Răteşti and Supur Authorities said tributaries of the Crasna river had broken their banks after 70 mm of rain fell in 3 hours early 13 May The flooding was described as the worst in 20 years Flood water was reportedly up to waist height around 150 people had evacuated flooded homes in Răteşti and nearby Beltiug Flooding in areas of Supur affected 49 households He said the volume of rainfall in such a short period is unprecedented in this region Hundreds of livestock have been lost and over 1,000 affected households “It is practically a miracle that we have no loss of human lives,” the Minister added Richard Davies is the founder of floodlist.com and reports on flooding news Cookies | Privacy | Contacts © Copyright 2025 FloodList the Holy Synod elected Bishop Nectarie of Brittany Assistant Bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese of Western Europe to the position of Romanian Orthodox Bishop of Ireland and Iceland abbot of the “Dormition of the Mother of God” Monastery in Vilar the Synod elected the first Romanian Orthodox Archbishop of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland and doctoral studies at the Saint-Serge Institute of Orthodox Theology in Paris “The Sacrament of Confession – The Historical Development of the Rite in Romanian Territories and Its Theology in the Orthodox Church” He began his monastic life in 1996 as a novice at Crasna Monastery and took his monastic vows under the name Nectarie at the same monastery in 2000 he has been the Exarch of Monasteries in the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese of Western Europe he served as Vicar for the same Archdiocese the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church elected Archimandrite Nectarie Petre as Assistant Bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese of Western Europe His episcopal ordination took place last September at the Cathedral in Paris The Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Ireland and Iceland was formally established by the Holy Synod on February 29 Together with the Archdiocese of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland it falls under the jurisdiction of the Romanian Orthodox Metropolis of Western and Southern Europe was elected as the first Romanian Orthodox Archbishop for the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of Spain and Portugal the Holy Synod also appointed the first Bishop of Ireland and Iceland has been part of the Romanian Orthodox Church Synod since May 2018 He will be the first to lead the newly established Archdiocese of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland Archbishop-elect Atanasie was born on January 17 the eldest of two sons of Eugen and Ala Rusnac He received Romanian citizenship on October 12 adopting the name Dionysius in honour of Saint Dionysius Exiguus serving at the Chapel of the Diocesan Centre and the Dormition of the Mother of God Monastery in Rome he took final monastic vows at Bivongi Monastery receiving the name Atanasie in honour of Saint Athanasius the Great he served at the Chapel of the Dormition of the Mother of God at the Eparchial Center in Rome From February 2011 until his episcopal ordination he served as Vicar of the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Italy he was elected Assistant Bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Italy Archbishop-elect Atanasie originally trained as an engineer he studied at the National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA) in Lyon where he earned a Master’s degree in Telecommunications and Networks He then completed a specialization in IT at MT System in Lyon he studied at the Saint-Serge Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris earning a degree in pastoral theology in 2010 He further pursued a Master’s degree in Practical Theology (Canon Law) from 2010 to 2012 at the “Andrei Șaguna” Faculty of Theology in Sibiu “Principles of Canonical Theology in the Diaspora with Special Reference to Italy,” reflects his commitment to supporting the Church’s mission abroad the Patriarchate of Jerusalem solemnly celebrated the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women... Archbishop Elpidophoros of America celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Monastery of the Theotokos.. it was announced that two Roman Catholic institutions in Bavaria have decided to jointly.. A car once used by Pope Francis during his 2014 visit to Bethlehem is being transformed into a mobile.. the Monastery of Saint Vlash in Albania hosted a festal Divine Liturgy on the.. Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece presided over the festal Great Vespers at the historic.. 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