One of the best things a book can do is tell you
something you didn’t know in a manner that makes you wish you had known it all
your life. Critically-acclaimed author Elizabeth Wein achieves this admirably
in Rose under Fire, her award-winning
novel about an American girl’s experience of the Holocaust.
Eighteen-year-old
Rose Justice works as an Air Traffic Auxiliary Pilot in England, doing
non-combat flying and ferrying for the war effort. She and her fellow pilots,
all female, share their love of flying as well as their hope that, now that the
D-Day invasion has been successful, the pilotless bomb attacks on London will
cease. The war’s reality becomes sickeningly close, however, when Rose chases
one of these Doodlebugs over enemy territory to deploy it and ends up captured
by the Germans. Imprisoned in Ravensbrück, the infamous concentration camp, she
is befriended by fellow prisoners, including a group known as the Rabbits who
were used as medical guinea pigs by the Germans. Together they endure brutal
treatment, clinging to hope when they can and receiving comfort from Rose’s
talent for poetry. But as the Allies draw closer and the Germans desperately
seek to hide their crimes against their hostages, Rose fears that none of the
Ravensbrück prisoners will leave the camp alive.
In Rose under Fire, Wein delivers a gritty
and gripping depiction of one of history’s most brutal massacres; her extensive
research on the plight of the Polish Rabbits gained her the Schnieder award for
depiction of the disability experience. Rose’s candor creates immediate
interest and performs the double role of giving a graphic insider’s view of the
concentration camp while engaging readers’ sympathy to make them want to keep
reading. In particular, Rose’s love of poetry is shown as a bonding force for
the weakened prisoners and delivers a heartening commentary on the power of
literature. The result is a book that offers a moving tribute to the human
spirit as well as a worthy addition to Holocaust literature.
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