Summary
A Jewish mother, Rosa, and her two daughters, Stella
and Magda, are walking in a death march during what the reader assumes to be
the Holocaust. Magda is a fifteen month old infant who had been hidden the
entire time of the march; she was wrapped in a shawl that lay across Rosa’s bosom,
which made her undetectable. Magda was a quiet, happy child; she never cried
which left Rosa thinking the child was born a mute. Rosa thought the shawl was
magic, because after her milk dried and Magda had nothing left to suck on but
the shawl, it kept her alive past the time she should have died. Stella always
envied Magda, and wanted to be the one wrapped up in the shawl. Rosa always
thought that the way that Stella looked at Magda was a way that carnivores look
at their prey: Rosa felt that her daughter would eat her other daughter if
given the chance. But one day in a concentration camp, Stella takes Magda’s
shawl to cover her during a roll-call of the camp. Rosa always hind Magda
behind a wall during roll-call wrapped in her shawl, Magda would never
cry. But one day, the day Stella takes
the shawl, Magda starts to cry. Rosa notices and runs to a sleeping Stella to
take the shawl she had stolen and wrap her younger daughter up in it before her
crying became noticeable. But while running toward Magda, Rosa realizes she
(Magda) has already been discovered by a Nazi guard and is being taken toward
an electric fence. Before Rosa even has time to react she watches while her
baby cries the loudest she has ever cried then is thrown to the live electric
fence. It takes mere seconds for the child’s life-less, burned body to fall to
the ground. Knowing she would be killed to if she tried to run to her fried
daughter, Rosa falls to her knees and stuffs the shawl into her mouth hoping to
be magically fed by it as her daughter once was.
Reader Response
This is a very powerful story that had me gasping
from beginning to end. As I type this I have a giant lump in my throat and an
upset stomach. I know just how gruesome the holocaust was and how many god
awful things the Nazi’s did to innocent people. But it is this very knowledge
that the writer wants the reader to go off of and recall while reading the
story. This story is a good example of cultural and historical setting. It
explores practically every aspect of that horrible time in history, the concentration
camps, death marches, human ovens, and inhuman guards. This was a well thought
out, well written story that explores a very touchy and hard to talk about
subject but also sheds light on a horrible possibility that could very well have
happened during that time in history. It is a very sad and moving story to
read, but I’m glad I read it. 
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