Posted on July 15, 2013
by gregg 
0 
She lost everything, except her life and this cherished grainy, photo of a then little Rose and her mother, taken in her peaceful days growing up in the Carpathian Mountains of Czechoslovakia. No other family artifacts or mementos survived the tragedy to come.
The lines on her face read like a road map. Follow the lines and they will take you back to a time of immense sorrow, from wealth to near total ruin. You see, Rose Safar Rosen is the sole member of her family to survive both the humiliation of a Jewish ghetto and the horror of the Nazis concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau.
On her arrival to Auschwitz in 1944, the Nazis soldiers didn’t even bother marking her with the famed Auschwitz Tattoo, the system of identifying prisoners at the concentration camp where a set of numbers were horrifically tattooed on the individual. Only those prisoners selected for work were issued serial numbers; those prisoners destined to be sent directly to the gas chambers were not registered and received no tattoos. Her entire family was sent to their death, but somehow she managed to survive amongst the ashes and snow, until the Russian Army liberated Auschwitz in the winter of ‘45.
Five years after gaining her freedom, she married and immigrated to the United States and started family with new visions of a happy, prosperous future. Now, at a youthful age of 91, she’s still pressing on. Pleasant family memories and freedom are intact.
During my photo session with Rose, to introduce some humor and soften her up, I suggested that after the shoot the two of us go hop in the pool to cool off. The twinkle in her eye and ever-so-slight coy smile told me she was considering it. NOTE: never ask a 91-year-old Auschwitz survivor to jump in the pool with you unless you’re prepared to follow through.
On a bad day, when things are a bit slow and I’m feeling low, I think of Rose and the core human instinct to overcome and move on. Some of what we think are daily travails can be so insignificant and inconsequential. So at the youthful age of 50-something, I kick myself in the rear and press on.
NOTE: full disclosure, Rose Safar Rosen is the aunt of Casting Director and Makeup Artist, Rose Rosen.