Toronto, ON – February 3, 2026 – Survival during the Holocaust often depended on moments of impossible choice and extraordinary courage. Two Roses: A Story of Deception and Determination in Nazi Germany (New Jewish Press, an imprint of University of Toronto Press, February 24, 2026, $26.95) brings a remarkable true story to life through a powerful graphic narrative by artist Miriam Libicki and Holocaust survivor Rose Lipszyc.
Blending evocative illustration with rigorous historical research and first-person testimony, Two Roses recounts how a Jewish teenager from Lublin, Poland, and her aunt survived inside Nazi Germany by adopting false identities and passing as forced labourers.
“A beautiful and heartbreaking mosaic of memory and testimony, this narrative of individual and collective trauma bridges the distance between past and present.” – Victoria Aarons, O.R. & Eva Mitchell Distinguished Professor of Literature, Trinity University
Born in 1929 as Rózia Handelsman, Rose grew up in Lublin’s vibrant Jewish community. In 1942, as Jews from the Bełżyce ghetto were marched toward almost certain death, Rose’s mother made a split-second decision that saved her daughter’s life. Separated from her family, Rose assumed a new identity as “Helena Jabłońska” and, together with her aunt—also named Rose—volunteered for forced labour in Nazi Germany as a means of survival.
In a forced-labour camp in Bremen, the two Roses endured hunger, exhaustion, air raids, and the constant threat of discovery while concealing their Jewish identity from both German authorities and fellow workers. In his foreword, historian Timothy Snyder underscores the rarity of such survival stories, noting that Two Roses offers “a memory, and through that, some understanding” of the Holocaust by tracing this story in close, human detail.
Edited by Mark Celinscak and Charlotte Schallié and featuring a foreword by historian Timothy Snyder, Two Roses brings together contextual essays by leading Holocaust scholars, reflections on the research and artistic process, and a first-person account by Lipszyc, who later became a prominent Holocaust educator in Canada and was awarded the Order of Canada in 2021.
This graphic novel was developed as part of the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives Project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Government of Canada.
Two Roses: A Story of Deception and Determination in Nazi Germany is available for purchase at utpublishing.com and major book retailers.