The Shawl (short story)

Last updated

"The Shawl"
Short story by Cynthia Ozick
LanguageEnglish
Genre(s) Historical short story
Publication
Published in The New Yorker (1980), The Shawl (1989)
Publication dateMarch 26, 1980

The Shawl is a short story first published by Cynthia Ozick in 1980 in The New Yorker . [1] It tells the story of three characters: Rosa, Magda, and Stella on their march to and internment in a Nazi concentration camp. The Shawl is noted for its ability to instill in the reader the horror of the Holocaust in less than 2,000 words. [2]

Contents

Plot summary

The story follows Rosa, her baby Magda, and her niece Stella on their march to a Nazi Concentration camp in the middle of winter. They are described as weak and starving during the march. Stella's knees are described as "tumors on sticks." Rosa is said to be a "walking cradle" because she constantly carries Magda close to her chest wrapped in her shawl. Rosa contemplates handing Magda off to one of the villagers watching their march, but decides that the guards would most likely just shoot them both. Rosa says the shawl is "magic" when Magda sucks on it because it sustained Magda for three days and three nights without food. Stella observes that Magda looks Aryan, but Rosa sees the observation as some kind of threat to Magda. At the camp, Rosa continues to hide Magda, but is in constant fear that someone will discover and kill her. One day, Stella takes Magda's shawl away to warm herself. Without her shawl, Magda, who hadn't made a sound since the march, begins screaming for her "Ma." Rosa hears the screaming, but does not run to Magda because the guards will kill them both. Instead, she runs to get the shawl and begins waving it in the hope that Magda will see it and calm down. She is too late and watches as the Nazi guards pick Magda up and throw her into the electric fence, killing her. Rosa stuffs the shawl into her mouth to stop herself from screaming.

In the novel version, the story continues in the United States, after the war is over.

Origin of The Shawl

Ozick was inspired to write The Shawl by a line in the book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer. The book mentioned a real event, a baby being thrown into an electric fence. Ozick was struck by the brutality of the death camp and felt inspired to write about that event. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Neudeck</span>

Ruth Closius-Neudeck was a Schutzstaffel (SS) supervisor at a Nazi concentration camp complex from December 1944 until March 1945. She was executed for war crimes.

Johanna Langefeld was a German female guard and supervisor at three Nazi concentration camps: Lichtenburg, Ravensbrück, and Auschwitz.

Cynthia Ozick is an American short story writer, novelist, and essayist.

<i>The Reader</i> 1995 Bernhard Schlink novel; basis for 2008 film

The Reader is a novel by German law professor and judge Bernhard Schlink, published in Germany in 1995 and in the United States in 1997. The story is a parable, dealing with the difficulties post-war German generations have had comprehending the Holocaust; Ruth Franklin writes that it was aimed specifically at the generation Bertolt Brecht called the Nachgeborenen, those who came after. Like other novels in the genre of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, the struggle to come to terms with the past, The Reader explores how the post-war generations should approach the generation that took part in, or witnessed, the atrocities. These are the questions at the heart of Holocaust literature in the late 20th and early 21st century, as the victims and witnesses die and living memory fades.

The Holocaust has been a prominent subject of art and literature throughout the second half of the twentieth century. There is a wide range of ways–including dance, film, literature, music, and television–in which the Holocaust has been represented in the arts and popular culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magda Szabó</span> Hungarian novelist

Magda Szabó was a Hungarian novelist. Doctor of philology, she also wrote dramas, essays, studies, memoirs, poetry and children's literature. She was a founding member of the Digital Literary Academy, an online digital repository of Hungarian literature. She is the most translated Hungarian author, with publications in 42 countries and over 30 languages.

<i>The Devils Arithmetic</i> 1988 childrens time slip novel by Jane Yolen

The Devil's Arithmetic is a historical fiction time slip novel written by American author Jane Yolen and published in 1988. The book is about Hannah Stern, a Jewish girl who lives in New Rochelle, New York, and is sent back in time to experience the Holocaust. During a Passover Seder, Hannah is transported back in time to 1941 Poland, during World War II, where she is sent to a concentration camp and learns the importance of knowing about the past.

<i>The Door</i> (novel) Novel by Magda Szabó

The Door is a novel by Hungarian writer Magda Szabó. The Door was originally published in Hungary in 1987, and translated into English in 1995 by Stefan Draughon for American publication, and again in 2005 by Len Rix for British publication. Rix's translation won the 2006 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, and was short-listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Rix's translation was republished in 2015 by New York Review Books Classics.

Out of the Ashes is a 2003 American made-for-television biographical drama film that was released by Showtime. It is a dramatization of the life of Holocaust concentration camp survivor Gisella Perl and is based on her book I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz. The film is dedicated to the memory of Richard Crenna, who died three months before it was released.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rutka Laskier</span> Jewish Polish diarist died in Auschwitz

Rut "Rutka" Laskier was a Jewish Polish diarist who is best known for her 1943 diary chronicling the three months of her life during the Holocaust in Poland. She was murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943 at the age of fourteen. Her manuscript, authenticated by Holocaust scholars and survivors, was published in the Polish language in early 2006. English and Hebrew translations were released the following year. It has been compared to the diary of Anne Frank.

<i>The Girl of Your Dreams</i> 1998 Spanish film

The Girl of Your Dreams is a 1998 Spanish drama film produced and directed by Fernando Trueba. Set during the Spanish Civil War, it centers on a fictional Andalusian actress making a film in Nazi Germany who becomes the object of Joseph Goebbels' attentions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Circle (DC Comics)</span> 2008 comic book story arc

"The Circle" is a four-issue comic book story arc written by Gail Simone with art by Terry Dodson and Rachel Dodson. Published in issues #14-17 of Wonder Woman, it marked the first arc by Gail Simone on her run of the book.

<i>The Ninth Circle</i> 1960 Yugoslav film directed by France Štiglic

The Ninth Circle is a 1960 Yugoslavian film directed by France Štiglic. The story revolves around the Croatian Ustaše concentration camp named The Ninth Circle, based on the infamous Jasenovac concentration camp. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It was also entered into the 1960 Cannes Film Festival.

Magda Herzberger, was Romanian-born author, poet, lecturer, and composer. Herzberger was a survivor of the Auschwitz, Bremen, and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps. Her book Survival was an account of her early life, her time in the camps and eventual liberation, and her reunion with her mother.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oskar Gröning</span> Accountant in Auschwitz (1921–2018)

Oskar Gröning was a German SS Unterscharführer who was stationed at the Auschwitz concentration camp. His responsibilities included counting and sorting the money taken from prisoners, and he was in charge of the personal property of arriving prisoners. On a few occasions he witnessed the procedures of mass killing in the camp. After being transferred from Auschwitz to a combat unit in October 1944, Gröning surrendered to the British at the end of the war; his role in the SS was not discovered. He was eventually transferred to the UK as a prisoner of war and worked as a farm labourer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ravensbrück concentration camp</span> Womens concentration camp in Nazi Germany

Ravensbrück was a German concentration camp exclusively for women from 1939 to 1945, located in northern Germany, 90 km (56 mi) north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück. The camp memorial's estimated figure of 132,000 women who were in the camp during the war includes about 48,500 from Poland, 28,000 from the Soviet Union, almost 24,000 from Germany and Austria, nearly 8,000 from France, and thousands from other countries including a few from the United Kingdom and the United States. More than 20,000 of the total were Jewish. Eighty-five percent were from other races and cultures. More than 80% were political prisoners. Many prisoners were employed as slave labor by Siemens & Halske. From 1942 to 1945, the Nazis undertook medical experiments on Ravensbrück prisoners to test the effectiveness of sulfonamides.

<i>The Storyteller</i> (Picoult novel) 2013 novel

The Storyteller is the twenty-second novel written by the American author, Jodi Picoult.

<i>The Nightingale</i> (Hannah novel) 2015 historical fiction novel by Kristin Hannah

The Nightingale is a historical fiction novel by American author Kristin Hannah published by St. Martin's Press in 2015. The book tells the story of two sisters in France during World War II and their struggle to survive and resist the German occupation of France. The book was inspired by the story of a Belgian woman, Andrée de Jongh, who helped downed Allied pilots escape Nazi territory.

Lisa Ullrich was a German activist and politician. She was elected to the national parliament (Reichstag) in July 1932, remaining a member till March 1933, after the Nazi take-over.

"Sur" is a short story by the American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in The New Yorker on February 1, 1982. It was included in The Compass Rose, a collection of stories by Le Guin first published in July 1982.

References

  1. Ozick, Cynthia. ""The Shawl"". The New Yorker. Retrieved September 15, 2020.
  2. "The Shawl | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved September 15, 2020.
  3. "The Shawl". NEA. Retrieved February 13, 2022.