Rose Under Fire

By Elizabeth Wein

Category: This is the first time I’ve read this. I decided to read it because it has the same author as Code Name Verity, and I really loved that book.

My thoughts: This was hard to read, but really good—although, not as good as Code Name Verity. It was engrossing, but difficult to read because it was so heartbreaking.

The heroine of Rose Under Fire is Rose Justice, a young American transport pilot working in England during the latter half of World War II. The events in this book take place after those of Code Name Verity—Maddie Broddatt from Code Name Verity works with Rose. In late 1944, Rose is captured by the Germans and sent to Ravensbrück, a German work camp for political prisoners. There are French Resistance prisoners, Russian prisoners, and Polish prisoners. The Polish women are called “rabbits,” because they are subjected to gruesome medical experiments. Their legs are horribly misshapen as a result. Some of the monsters who performed those “procedures” were tried for War Crimes.

I never really thought about how many nationalities occupied the German concentration and work camps. In addition to American Rose, there’s Roza, a very young Polish prisoner who was one of the Rabbits, and Lisette, a French novelist (this isn’t portrayed in the novel, but I read that there were also British prisoners there). This blend of nationalities reminded me a little bit of Casablanca , how people from several different countries gathered in Morocco for refuge. Specifically, the scene where Victor Lazlo leads everyone in a sing-a-long to "La Marseillaise" sometimes popped into my head whilst reading about Ravensbrück —because in the camp, people from other nationalities came together against a common enemy. A very heartbreaking sidenote: I read somewhere that when the Red Army liberated Ravensbrück in 1945, Soviet soldiers raped some of the women in the camp. How horrible is that?

Ok, one thing about this novel is how brutally realistic it is concerning the day-to-day life at the camp. One horrid thing that I’ve never read anywhere else in any account of life in a German work camp…is about what happened with their bodily functions. Elizabeth Wein doesn’t shy away from mentioning this. The toilets at Ravensbrück had long stopped working by the time Rose was there, and the ladies had to go to the bathroom in a ditch. And because of the diseases that ran rampant in the camps and ravaged the women’s poor bodies—diseases that cause runny diarrhea…well, some folks liked to sleep on the top bunks so they didn’t get “rained” on.

There’s an ongoing refrain in this novel: “Tell the world.” The other day, there was a conviction for genocide that happened during the Bosnian War, which I remember hearing about on the news in the ‘90s but, like so many things, only began to understand during adulthood. World history has too many stories about mass tragedy (Cambodia, Somalia, Rwanda…). I am thankful for the fact that usually there are a few brave souls who do stand up and tell the world.

Great passage: Lift is made when the air pressure under a wing is greater than the air pressure over the wing. Then the wing gets pushed upward. That’s how birds fly. That’s how kites fly—a kite is basically just a solitary wing. That’s how airplanes fly.

But people need lift, too. People don’t get moving, they don’t soar, they don’t achieve great heights, without something buoying them up.

Code Name Verity

Books and chocolate=Phenomenal duo.

Author: Elizabeth Wein

Category: I saw this book lying around my teenage cousin’s room for weeks. It looked intriguing, so I asked her if I could borrow it (I feel as though I made her become a reader, so it’s fitting that now I’m borrowing books from her).

My thoughts: Oh my goodness. What a great read! This book was marketed to teens, but it’s one of those books that I feel like should be marketed to adults. And it made me cry. And not just a single tear—I actually sobbed (at the time, I was in the safety of my own apartment, and not in public, thankfully). So, dear reader, do not expect a happy experience with this book. But it is well worth picking up.

Code Name Verity begins with a confession. During World War II, in occupied France, a British spy for the Special Operations Executive has been caught by the Gestapo and is imprisoned in a former hotel that they are using as their headquarters. The officer in charge of the “interrogations” (perhaps I should call it what it is—torture) Captain von Linden, gives her paper on which to write her story, including details of the British war effort. And thus we get the story of the strong friendship between our imprisoned spy, nicknamed Queenie, and Maddie Brodatt, a young female pilot. It was Maddie who flew Queenie to France in the first place.

As I said before, this novel involves some torture. And the torture scenes are quite graphic. These moments were difficult to read, but I feel as though they are necessary. You can’t have a book about a World War II prison without the ugly aspects, and such things happened to real people. Like The Book Thief, I love that Code Name Verity highlights the bravery of those who resisted the Nazis. People like Queenie (we eventually get her real name, but why spoil the surprise) and the French Resistance fighters rebelled against Nazi occupation—even though it could, at the very least, cost them their lives. They remind me of the civil rights workers in Coming of Age in Mississippi—other young people who decided to fight against unjust systems (some of whom died in the process). But Code Name Verity also highlights the fact that so many people got caught up in the whole Nazi machine, and this led them to do despicable, horrid things.

There are several references to Peter Pan and Macbeth (Queenie, as she reminds everyone, is a Scot, and woe betide anyone who calls her English). Also, there’s a reference to Admiral Horatio Nelson’s last words (“Kiss me, Hardy”). I have to admit, as an American, I’m only vaguely familiar with Admiral Nelson. Also, the friendship in this book reminds me the one in my first magical reading experience, the book that made me really fall in love with reading—Charlotte’s Web. That book depicted a strong friendship between two characters from different backgrounds. I don’t want to give too much of the plot of Code Name Verity away, because it takes some interesting turns. I kept having to turn back to previous pages and reread passages that were clues I’d missed the first time (I didn’t even know they were clues). Just read the book, and you’ll see what I mean.

Great passage: You know, I envied her. I envied her the simplicity of her work, the spiritual cleanness of it—Fly the plane, Maddie. That was all she had to do. There was no guilt, no moral dilemma, no argument or anguish—danger, yes, but she always knew what she was facing. And I envied that she had chosen her work herself and was doing what she wanted to do. I don’t suppose I had any idea what I “wanted” and so I was chosen, not choosing. There’s glory and honor in being chosen. But not much room for free will.

Up next: Persuasion—because I need to read something slightly cheerful.