“Running for Shelter: A True Story” – Kids Corner (Ages 13+)

 Seating is first come, first served and requires general registration.

Suzette Sheft grew up hearing the horrific stories of her grandmother’s life during the Holocaust – the Nazis kicking down her door, the anguished separation from her mother in Vienna, the years of fear and dislocation, staying one step ahead of capture and deportation to a concentration camp. When the now-sixteen-year-old Suzette read a 2020 survey that most young Americans did not know how many Jews were killed by the Germans and many had never heard the term Holocaust, she became determined to change it. The result is her debut Running for Shelter: A True Story, based on her grandmother’s harrowing experiences during WWII. Sheft will be in conversation with Nechama Birnbaum, author of The Redhead of Auschwitz: A True Story.

Suzette Sheft is a sixteen-year-old student at the Horace Mann School in New York City. In her free time, she enjoys writing, reading, running, volunteering, and spending time with her family. She won a Scholastic Silver Key for an excerpt of Running for Shelter, her debut novel. The book is dedicated to her late father who inspired her to write and share her family’s story. 

Nechama Birnbaum had known since she was a little girl that she would write her grandmother’s story. Her friend’s grandmas brought them presents; hers brought her stories. Lucky for her, stories were her favorite thing of all, especially the story of one stubborn redhead’s determination to survive. Birnbaum is the author of The Redhead of Auschwitz: A True Story.