Rose (Rosa) Buchbinder was born in Bad Kissingen on August 10, 1897 together with her twin sister Olga as the daughter of Karl and Karoline Buchbinder, née May. Her father was at times a member of the Kissingen Spa Orchestra.

In 1900, the family moved to Würzburg. Rose studied music, presumably at Würzburg Conservatory and played as harpist at the theatres of Würzburg, Memel, Nuremberg, and in the spa orchestra of Bad Mergentheim. Rose didn’t marry and lived with her early widowed mother in Würzburg and Nuremberg. 

Being Jewish, she lost her income in 1933 as she was excluded from the Reichsmusikkammer (Reich Music Chamber) like many other Jewish artists. In 1937, she succeeded in emigrating to the USA. After trying to find her bearing in New York as a harpist, she worked there first as a home help and a supervisor in an orphans’ home. After the arrival of her mother in the USA, she started to work in a factory. In 1954, she was supported by the SDR (Süddeutscher Rundfunk) Artist Fund (SDR =radio station in Stuttgart for parts of Baden-Württemberg in the south west of Germany between 1949 and 1998). The SDR had founded this institution in 1951 using money gained from radio advertising. It helped a lot of destitute exiled artists and scientists and their relatives by giving them money. 

Not much is known about the further life of Rose Buchbinder. It is only known that she lived in Kew Gardens (NY) in the last years of her life and died on May 16, 1983 in in the USA.