1st story in, "The Shawl"

     I had to read it a couple times because I was confused as to what character was doing what in the beginning.  I figured out that Rosa is a mother to Magda and there is a fourteen year old girl with them maybe another daughter of Rosa.  The setting is in the concentration camps in Germany during World War II.  I also understand that Rosa is trying to hide her baby from everyone so they won't kill her.
     Magda is thin and is malnourished because they are in the concentration camps and all she has to feed on is this shawl that Rosa credits for keeping the baby alive.  On page 5 it says, "It was a magic shawl, it could nourish an infant for three days and three nights.  Magda did not die, she stayed alive although very quiet."  The mother Rosa is seeing her daughter not dying under almost unlivable circumstances as a miracle and is giving the credit to the shawl for feeding her while her own breasts couldn't.  It also mentions in this line about Magda's muteness that she seems to have from birth that keeps her alive throughout her infancy.  However, when the shawl blows away one day she cries out and it could have ultimately have lead to her death at the end of the first chapter.  This shows that the baby was attached to the shawl because it was wrapped in it so long.  The baby could have also seen it as a mother figure.
     Now Rosa's character in the first chapter seems to be scared for her baby's life.  When the baby runs off at the end she is questioning how to save the child, and if to save the child.  On page 8 it says, "A tide of commands hammered in Rosa's nipples:  Fetch, get, bring! But she did not know which to go after first,  Magda or the shawl?"  After she decides that she had to save her child she weighs out her options to get the shawl to get Magda back to it and safe or fetch the child who would scream anyway without the shawl and probably be killed.  She chooses to go after the shawl, but it is to late the baby has already hit the electric fence and died.
     In the rest of the book because it is titled Rosa I think it is going to talk about how she lived after her horrible experiences in the camps.  I also would like to know what happened to Stella who she described as being cold because of their situation and canabal like while in the camps.  Did she survive?  What I do know is that loosing the baby was probably the hardest thing that Rosa had to deal with.  Against the hunger and awful conditions it seems that the author emphasized on her loosing the baby because it had the most impact on her emotionally and mentally.