What makes a survivor?

In class today, the question was asked if The Shawl is a story about a survivor and what makes Rosa a survivor. Most stories that you hear about the Holocaust is about people who have lived and tell their story about how much stronger they are because of their experience in the camps. At least I have never heard a story about a person from the concentration camps who thirty years after the experience is still tragically traumatized like it was yesterday. Rosa, one of the main characters and focus of this book, seems to be that unique case where she is still in victim mode once she is released from the concentration camps.

Once Rosa is released, she then moves to the United States with Stella, in hopes of making a better and safer life for themselves. Rosa then becomes a successful antique businesswoman and is living a quite comfortable life compared to back in Europe and especially in the concentration camps. However, Rosa's mind is telling her that she does not deserve this wealthy life and here begins her act of punishment unto herself. She destroys her store, for many reasons such as her offensive customers, but a main reason to point out is that she feels unworthy of what she has made for herself. She cannot bring herself to move on and make a new life, because as a victim she begins to hate herself for even beginning to forget about what happened at the camps and what happened to her daughter, Magda. This is an interesting perspective read about because most survivor stories do not have their main characters relapsing into the camp mindset, like you can see in Rosa. While in her store, she begins to hear voices and is having flashbacks, which is another trigger towards her reaction of smashing her store. Rosa's replication of camp life is opposite of Stella, who is moving on and becoming Americanized and finding opportunities to take and better herself. Even when she is almost sixty, living in Florida, she reverts to victim mode so much that she is so helpless that she cannot even take care of herself. She sleeps in a shabby hotel and lives in poverty, much like the conditions of a concentration camp, but obviously not as harsh. She loathes herself for having tried to move on from her camp experience and her daughter, so she is purposely putting herself into victim mode by punishing herself. Rosa's story is a very unique tale of one woman's battle to live in the present while still clinging onto her past experiences. She punishes herself because she feels that she does not deserve a future if her daughter, her family, and so many others did not have that opportunity.