The Shawl Question #2

I believe the reason why the author decided to include such a small segment about the Holocaust was due to the fact that the book was not supposed to be a recount of Holocaust experiences.  This book was mainly about Rosa and her relationship with Stella and other people and how her experience in the Holocaust made her act the way she does.  When Stella steals the shawl for herself Rosa's baby is exposed and thrown against an electric fence by one of the guards.  After this event Rosa is forever scarred and blames her baby's death completely on Stella, even though she was only fourteen years old.  She resents Stella so much that she calls her "The angel of death," which is also the nickname for the notorious Nazi doctor who performed disturbing and inhumane experiments on Jews in the Holocaust.  This one event completely shaped their relationship for the rest of their lives.  The story is mainly about Rosa's life in Florida because it captures her life after the Holocaust and how it affected the outcome her future.  Stella sends her money and is very nice and patient with Rosa, but Rosa still holds an everlasting grudge against her because of the unintentional death of her baby.  Rosa is also slightly deranged thus unable to have normal relationships with people.  She feels alone in the world because she believes that no one could ever understand what she had gone through.  When she met an old man in the laundromat the man realized that they were both from Warsaw, Poland except he moved to the United States in 1920, well before the Holocaust began.  She responded by saying, "My Warsaw is not your Warsaw."  What she meant by this is that even though they are from the same place, the way they remember it is drastically different due to her experience in the Holocaust.  Her life in Florida is a way to show people the lives of the Holocaust survivors after the Holocaust, and how it will forever affect them in the way that they live.