Rose Pinkasovic Zelkovitz wrote From the Carpathian Mountains to the New Jersey Seashore, especially for her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. However, Rose also wanted to share her story of surviving the Holocaust with school children.

Rose was born in the Carpathian Mountains, one of eight children. As a child she had one of the best voices in her village, so she was often chosen to sing solos. After school Rose helped in her father’s store, doing the store’s accounting. In the 1940s, Rose and her family were driven from their village and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Rose eventually was imprisoned in three concentration camps—Auschwitz, Stutthof, and Brumberg—and was forced on a death march.

Along with two sisters and two brothers, Rose survived the Holocaust; however, her parents, her other sisters and their husbands, and all her nieces and nephews were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau. After liberation in 1945, Rose met and married her husband, Mayer, the only survivor of a family of ten. Rose and Mayer with their two-year old son, Herman, immigrated to the United State in August of 1950. They lived and worked in Baltimore, Maryland, until retiring, when they moved to Atlantic City to be closer to their son and his family.

Rose’s store is an inspiring story of survival and resilience—of a courageous, hard- working, and loving woman.