Red Snow is a beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten mem­oir recount­ing the trag­ic and har­row­ing details of how Robert Zweig’s par­ents sur­vived the Holo­caust. While Zweig grounds the book in the mem­o­ries that his par­ents shared with him, along with metic­u­lous­ly researched his­tor­i­cal facts, this book, at its heart, is a son’s explo­ration of how his father and moth­er sur­vived the many chal­lenges and tragedies they faced dur­ing the Holocaust. 

The book opens on Novem­ber 9, 1938 dur­ing Kristall­nacht, or the Night of Bro­ken Glass, when Nazi Ger­many pro­voked a nation­wide riot tar­get­ing Jew­ish places of wor­ship, busi­ness­es, homes, and peo­ple. Rec­og­niz­ing this moment as a poten­tial turn­ing point in their lives, the author’s grand­fa­ther, Hein­rich Zweig, address­es his four young sons, includ­ing Robert’s father, Leo, telling them that if any­thing should hap­pen, he has sent mon­ey to an Uncle in Amer­i­ca where they can start a new life. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Hein­rich nev­er takes any steps to move to Amer­i­ca, even as the Nazi regime’s grip on Ger­man life becomes tighter and more vio­lent. He is too afraid of los­ing every­thing he worked so hard to cre­ate in Bres­lau, Ger­many. Trag­i­cal­ly, that deci­sion will cost him and most of the mem­bers of his fam­i­ly their lives. By the end of the Holo­caust, only Leo and his old­est broth­er, Sigi, who had been sent to Pales­tine fol­low­ing Kristall­nacht, sur­vived. 

As the author takes the read­er through the details of his father’s sur­vival, his mother’s jour­ney dur­ing the Holo­caust, and how his par­ents ulti­mate­ly met after the war, he is trans­par­ent that ​“many of the scenes, dia­logue, and inner thoughts are writ­ten here as I have imag­ined them…” Zweig choos­es not to cre­ate a pure­ly his­tor­i­cal account of his par­ents’ expe­ri­ences dur­ing the Holo­caust. Instead, as he takes the read­er through his par­ents’ Holo­caust jour­neys, he imag­ines what his par­ents might have been think­ing and feel­ing as their lives were torn apart, as well as the con­ver­sa­tions they may have had with those they encoun­tered along the way. What must Leo have thought and felt when he returned home from forced labor to dis­cov­er his father, moth­er, and youngest broth­er gone? How did he endure a year in soli­tary con­fine­ment? How did he find enough hope and courage to keep mov­ing for­ward after sur­viv­ing Auschwitz, only to be put on a death march? And how did he move for­ward after the war, after every­thing he had seen, endured, and lost? 

The author takes the con­ver­sa­tions he had with his par­ents, as well as his per­son­al knowl­edge of their val­ues, strengths, and spir­its, sup­port­ed by his­tor­i­cal research, to grap­ple with the answers to all of these ques­tions. The result is a mas­ter­piece. Zweig deft­ly fus­es fact with nar­ra­tive, allow­ing the read­er to feel trans­port­ed into the lives of Zweig’s par­ents dur­ing the Holo­caust, result­ing in a pow­er­ful and mov­ing read.