As the immediacy of the Holocaust continues to fade from the collective memory of the world, and even from that of too many Jews, due to the passage of time and the passing of the survivor community, publications of books such as A Rose Among the Thorns by Rochel Schmidt, become seminal events.

 

In dramatic fashion, Ms. Schmidt, in this novel based on historical fact, tells the tale of the heroic, and ultimately successful, efforts to preserve the life of a Jewish baby girl born in a cattle car on the way to Auschwitz.

 

The trials and tribulations of the baby, Shoshana Raizel, and her remarkable survival are only part of the story — though her survival certainly signals the ultimate triumph of good over evil.

 

The faith of her parents and those who saved her bespeaks an emunah inthe Ribbono Shel Olam difficult for most of us to fathom and represents the quintessential response to the savagery of the Nazis and their plan for settling the “Jewish Problem.”

 

Likewise, readers cannot help but sense the author’s own personalfaith.

 

Adding to the impact of Ms. Schmidt’s literate and entirely believable narrative is her gift for detail. The emotional depiction of the overarching vulnerability of the Jews and the predicament of the victims of the Holocaust comes through on every page and should serve as an enduring statement of man’s inhumanity to man.