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. Most of the murders were carried out by herding prisoners into trucks equipped with nozzles that dispensed poisoned gas. At Chelmno, he witnessed the systematic extermination of countless people. He joined a group of rebels who set out to rescue prisoners from the concentration camp Chelmno. 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. During World War II, he hid in various places in Europe and met a large number of political dissidents. He was persecuted by the Nazi regime not because he was Jewish, but because he was homosexual. The novel’s Holocaust narrative is told by Josef, as he recounts his life and encounters with Gemma to Rebecca.
She travels through Poland to search for traces of her grandmother’s life. There, she learns of a Polish man, Josef Potocki, who is somehow linked to Gemma.
Rebecca flies to Poland to find the site that was once Chelmno. She was placed in Chelmno concentration camp in a queue to be executed. She learns that Gemma was a survivor of the Holocaust who narrowly escaped death due to her Jewish identity. Rebecca asks her friend Stan, an investigative journalist who works for a historical newspaper. 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. The novel begins at home in Gemma’s Boston suburb just after the death of her grandmother. The third story, back in Massachusetts, unites the first and second. 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. In 1993, the novel was nominated for the Nebula Award, one of the highest honors in fiction.
Gemma is a repeat storyteller, and the plot cycles back and forth through time as she recalls the story over many nights. Much of the story is told in fragments by an old woman named Gemma as she relays it to her three granddaughters during bedtime. 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. Briar Rose is a 1992 novel for young adults by American author Jane Yolen.
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