This book was a 2023 finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in Holocaust Memoir.

In the sum­mer of 1941, eleven-year-old Wolf is grow­ing up amid the rub­ble and anti­semitism of war-torn Nazi Berlin. Des­ti­tute and fac­ing depor­ta­tion, he must leave behind his sis­ter and trav­el with his fam­i­ly across a con­ti­nent entrenched in war. With noth­ing in hand but expired visas to the US, Wolf and his fam­i­ly must fig­ure out how to sneak aboard the Span­ish freighter the Nave­mar, a ship that would gain its rep­u­ta­tion as the ​“Hell Ship of Death.” But this is only the begin­ning of Wolf’s saga.

Amer­i­can Wolf is a heart-stop­ping true sto­ry full of last-minute res­cues, near-death encoun­ters, and sur­vival against untold odds. It is also a sto­ry about com­ing of age, fam­i­ly dys­func­tion and nation­al iden­ti­ty, and is a resound­ing tes­ta­ment to the tri­umph of the human spirit.

Using the notes com­piled by her father, Audrey Birn­baum vivid­ly retells a poignant account of Wolf’s child­hood in Berlin, his riv­et­ing escape from Nazi Ger­many, and the con­tin­ued chal­lenges he faced even as he reached freedom.‍