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|title=Rose Under Fire

|author=Elizabeth Wein

|publisher=Electric Monkey

|date=June 2013

|website=http://www.elizabethwein.com

|summary=Towards the end of World War Two Rose Justice, a young American pilot who came to Britain as a volunteer, is captured by the Germans and sent to Ravenbrück. Throughout the horror-filled days that follow, she learns that survival requires far more than simply staying alive.

}}

There's a list of names on the title page of this extraordinary and moving book. Note it well: these seventy-four women are real. As a group they were known as the Ravenbrück Rabbits, and they were the victims of medical experiments carried out to help improve surgery for German soldiers wounded in the field. Little or no anaesthetic, poor aftercare: these things, while horrible, fit in with what we know of the concentration camps. What many will not know is the truly gut-wrenching fact that sometimes the doctors did not even bother to follow up on the experiments they carried out. All that pain, infection and disability (for those lucky enough to survive the procedures), and all for nothing. They didn't even help the enemy soldiers recover from their injuries.

If you will pardon the flippancy, this book is definitely a ten-tissue-tome: the life is so well-described, the experiences so visceral that they almost become lyrical. Elizabeth Wein is a wonderful writer whose earlier book, [[Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein|Code Name Verity]] is amassing prizes and accolades, and this book is destined to do the same. It's not that we're suggesting you read it: you must. It's beautiful and ugly, generous and cruel, and it should be on the shelf in every school library. As the Rabbits said: Tell The World.

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