Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein
Published by Electric Monkey, 2013

Eighteen year old Rose Justice is an amateur poet and a World War Two pilot, the youngest in the British Air Transport Auxiliary. While flying an Allied fighter plane from Paris to England, she is intercepted by a German Luftwaffe plane and is taken prisoner by the Nazis and sent to a women’s concentration camp in Ravensbrück. Rose’s story is one of incredible bravery and endurance in the face of the severest adversity.

Presented in three different parts, Part One of the book comes in diary form from Rose’s Southampton base followed by Part Two detailing her experiences at the concentration camp. Part Three is set in the war trials of 1946.

Part Two of her story will undoubtedly be the most shocking for readers, giving vivid accounts of the punishments and beatings she witnesses at the Camp and describing its many horrors.

But Rose finds hope through the loyalty, bravery and friendship of her fellow prisoners and Political Prisoner 51498, Rose Justice eventually escapes with two fellow inmates.

"This is a powerful and shocking novel. A story of friendship, loyalty and self-sacrifice, with occasional grim humour. The novel would be very good background reading for Leaving Certificate history students."
Inis. The Children’s Books Ireland Magazine, Winter 2013