Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

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While flying an Allied fighter plane from Paris to England, American ATA pilot and amateur poet, Rose Justice, is captured by the Nazis and sent to Ravensbrück, the notorious women's concentration camp. Trapped in horrific circumstances, Rose finds hope in the impossible through the loyalty, bravery and friendship of her fellow prisoners. But will that be enough to endure the fate that’s in store for her?

Elizabeth Wein, author of the critically-acclaimed and best-selling Code Name Verity, delivers another stunning WWII thriller. The unforgettable story of Rose Justice is forged from heart-wrenching courage, resolve, and the slim, bright chance of survival.









Review:

Elizabeth Wein hits another one out of the park with Rose Under Fire.  This is a different type of story than Code Name Verity.  Yes, Rose is an ATA pilot.  And, yes, Maddie and Jamie make an appearance.  But Rose is not an enemy agent being interrogated by the Gestapo.  She is a young American girl that makes a brave and foolish decision.  A decision that leads to her capture and subsequent interment in the women’s concentration camp, Ravensbrük.

Rose Under Fire doesn’t deliver that big shocking bang that we all experienced in Code Name Verity.  Instead it delivers a fictional story of a young unsuspecting woman and how she survives in a camp that later became known for its experiments on women.   Through Rose’s eyes we see the atrocities the women before her endured and how they survive.   Through her poems we get an idea as to how she and her prison companions coped with the inhumanity of their daily life.  Through her experience we learn that the horrors of the things they endured formed the strongest friendships where there otherwise would be none.

This story is both disturbing and educational in its truths.  As with Code Name Verity, Wein backs up her novel’s believability with an Afterward and Bibliography that explains her research and clarifies what is true and what is not.  I would venture to say that Rose Under Fire is one that should be added to school’s required reading list.  Although it is a fictional account, the reader receives an educated and empathetic view of what it was like to be held in a women’s concentration camp during WWII.




Nat