The Shawl is a devastating short story written by Cynthia Ozick about the Holocaust and the social pain of concentration camps.
The story depicts a mother, Rosa, her daughter, Magda, and niece, Stella, desperately trying to survive. It opens as they are lining up to go to a concentration camp. Rosa hides Magda in a blanket (the shawl) that’s wrapped around her body as a piece of clothing. Stella, who is a teenager, is lonely and jealous for Rosa’s attention, and when she takes the shawl away from Magda one day, the baby is discovered and killed as a Nazi flings Magda into an electric fence.
Sadly, Rosa was forced to watch her child being tortured and was powerless to stop it. All she could do was stuff the shawl in her mouth to keep from screaming and being killed herself.
Magda was her only reason for living, and now she was gone forever.
How do you cope with that?
How do you move past utter-despair?
There are no easy answers, but as Christians God will always be there waiting with His arms open for us to run to Him.
Few situations in life are as terrible as the Holocaust. But everyone suffers in different shapes and forms. For journalists recently it’s been about losing jobs. In Michigan, the Ann Arbor News is shutting down, and Christian reporters are losing their jobs. But God is still faithful, and as Christians we must remember that he will provide for all of our needs. Sometimes we will face unbearable situations and bad things will happen, but God’s still there.
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