Briar Rose

Briar Rose is a 1992 novel for young adults by American author Jane Yolen. A blend of the classic fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty (alternately Briar Rose), Jewish history, and Yolen’s own life, it was first published in the Fairy Tale Series curated by Terri Windling. Much of the story is told in fragments by an old woman named Gemma as she relays it to her three granddaughters during bedtime. Gemma is a repeat storyteller, and the plot cycles back and forth through time as she recalls the story over many nights. In 1993, the novel was nominated for the Nebula Award, one of the highest honors in fiction.

The novel is split into three sections. The first takes place at Gemma’s home in the present day and the second in World War II Poland at a concentration camp called Chelmno, or “the castle. The third story, back in Massachusetts, unites the first and second. The novel begins at home in Gemma’s Boston suburb just after the death of her grandmother. Gemma’s youngest granddaughter, Rebecca Berlin, suspects that there is a real memory behind her grandmother’s bedtime story, which she has told countless times. Rebecca asks her friend Stan, an investigative journalist who works for a historical newspaper. She learns that Gemma was a survivor of the Holocaust who narrowly escaped death due to her Jewish identity. She was placed in Chelmno concentration camp in a queue to be executed. Rebecca flies to Poland to find the site that was once Chelmno. There, she learns of a Polish man, Josef Potocki, who is somehow linked to Gemma. She travels through Poland to search for traces of her grandmother’s life.

The novel’s Holocaust narrative is told by Josef, as he recounts his life and encounters with Gemma to Rebecca. He was persecuted by the Nazi regime not because he was Jewish, but because he was homosexual. During World War II, he hid in various places in Europe and met a large number of political dissidents. He spent most of this time in Germany, where he heard horror stories about the extermination and torture of the Jews, homosexuals, anti-Nazi activists, and other populations. He joined a group of rebels who set out to rescue prisoners from the concentration camp Chelmno. At Chelmno, he witnessed the systematic extermination of countless people. Most of the murders were carried out by herding prisoners into trucks equipped with nozzles that dispensed poisoned gas. As they drove from the camp to the mass graves, the gas would be released, killing everyone inside so that they could easily be dumped into the pits. During one of these trips, a rebel nicknamed The Avenger catches sight of a woman with red hair who is still breathing among the bodies of her cellmates. The woman is Gemma, and Josef resuscitates her. This moment is later memorialized in the bedtime story that Gemma tells her granddaughters, except she is the “princess,” and Josef gives her the “kiss of life.” Rebecca learns that more than a 250,000 prisoners were killed in Chelmno during World War II, most of whom were Jews.



After her escape from the camp, Gemma hid in the woods with the rebels. She went on to marry The Avenger, then got pregnant. Josef fell in love with The Avenger, but it was unrequited. The marriage came to a tragic end: The Avenger was killed by the Nazis as well as most of the rebels. Gemma, one of the few who survived, traveled to the United States. She never revealed her story to anyone. However, the traumatic memories remained with her. Ultimately, she dealt with them by transforming them into a fairy tale involving a princess, a witch, and a prince. Unlike the tragic ending of her story, the fairy tale ended happily.

In the novel’s final section, Becca returns to the United States to relay the story of Gemma to her friend Stan and her sisters. When she lands at the airport, Stan has arrived to drive her home. They kiss, and Stan tells her that they will find their own “happily ever after.” Briar Rose shows how victims of senseless tragedies can contribute to a better future through the power of storytelling.