In the preface to his book on Ravensbrück, Jack Morrison points out that it would have been impossible for a single prisoner to have as broad a view of the camp as the researcher who tries to look at all aspects of its six-year operational history. Rose’s experience is limited from September 1944 to March 1945, which means that within the confines of my book it’s impossible to describe much of what went on before or after these dates. Also, Rose’s experience is limited to an extremely closed circle of prisoners and their restricted movements – she never gets inside the textile factories, or the kitchens, or is sent on coal-picking duty, or unloads barges by the lake. She doesn’t interact with children or Gypsies or Jehovah’s Witnesses or the men’s camp, all of which have their own moving stories of oppression and rebellion. Rose doesn’t work in the prisoner-organised maternity ward, a story of miracle and heartbreak. After June 1943, and until the Auschwitz evacuees turned up late in 1944 there were very few Jewish women at Ravensbrück, and those were confined to a single block; their stories are also different. There is a lot more out there than the limited window on Ravensbrück which Rose’s experience provides . . . just so you know.
Each of my main characters is inspired in part by real people, but they are original characters. There’s no Ró?a Czajkowska or Karolina Salska on the actual list of Rabbits’ names. However, Dr Leo Alexander and the four Polish women who gave evidence at the Doctors’ Trial – Maria Broel-Plater, Jadwiga Dzido, W?adys?awa Karo?ewska, and Maria Ku?mierczuk – were all real. The doctors Fritz Fischer, Karl Gebhardt and Herta Oberheuser were real, and so was Ravensbrück’s commander in 1945, Fritz Suhren (Rose only ever refers to him as ‘the stinking commander’). Most of Ravensbrück’s copious documentation was purposefully destroyed before the Soviet Army freed the camp, so the bulk of research on Ravensbrück comes from witness and survivor accounts.
Rose’s mnemonic counting-out rhyme includes all the given names of the seventy-four Polish women experimented on in Ravensbrück (the spelling of their names has been simplified for English-speaking readers). Some of the women had similar first names or shared a name – in the poem each name is only listed once. The real names of these seventy-four women experimented on are printed on the title page of this book.
Writing out Rose’s handwriting sample made me cry. It was the first time I had ever really thought about the Declaration of Independence and what it means to say that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are unalienable rights. Tell the world. I have tried.
Acknowledgements
The editorial teams behind Rose Under Fire were much more actively involved in its creation than in any of my previous books. I am deeply and eternally grateful for their focus and enthusiasm. Thank you, Stella Paskins of Egmont UK, Catherine Onder of Disney Hyperion and Janice Weaver of Doubleday Canada – and thank you to my agent, Ginger Clark, who was involved in every single editorial discussion.
Obviously it wasn’t just Ravensbrück that I researched for this book, and if you check my website on www.elizabethwein.com you’ll be able to find discussion of a range of details from aircraft interception to women pilots. I owe thanks to Steve Venus for information on V-1 fuses and prisoner accounts of forced labour in German factories; his website and collection can be viewed at http://www.bombfuzecollectorsnet.com. Katja Kasri was my German language consultant; her training as a history teacher means that whenever I ask her a question about, say, how to address someone using her prisoner number, she spends a couple of hours trawling newsreel footage and witness testimony to confirm the accuracy of the answer. Tori Tyrrell, Miriam Roberts and Amanda Banks all read the manuscript at least three times and provided me with invaluable reader criticism and encouragement. Katherine Nehring also got tagged at the last minute as a ‘fresh eye’ and provided much-needed annotations on a very tight deadline.
Last, but hardly least, I am indebted to the generous sponsors and organisers of the European Summer School at Ravensbrück and to the Ravensbrück Memorial and International Youth Meeting Centre for both their tremendous welcome and for the wealth of critical thinking and resources they opened to me.