Irena's Gift
An Epic WWII Memoir of Sisters, Secrets, and Survival
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Narrated by:
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Karen Kirsten
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By:
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Karen Kirsten
About this listen
In 1942, in German-occupied Poland, a Jewish baby girl was smuggled out of the Warsaw ghetto in a backpack. That baby, Joasia, knew nothing about this extraordinary event until she was thirty-two, when a letter arrived from a stranger. She also learned that the parents who raised her were actually her aunt and uncle. Joasia kept this knowledge hidden from her own daughter, Karen—until an innocent question unexpectedly revealed the truth.
Determined to understand the generational trauma that cloaked her family in silence, her own origins, and to help heal her mother's pain, Karen set out to unearth decades of secrets and piece together a hidden history—from the glittering days of pre-war Poland to the little-known Radom Prison, where of 500 resistance members tortured, only ten survived, her grandfather the only known Jewish one. There, Karen finds answers, yet not easy ones.
As she exposes her family's saga of love and betrayal, countless brushes with death, precarious hiding places, and the astounding negotiation with an SS officer who saved her mother's life, Karen must reconcile the complicated, multi-faceted truths behind human behavior.
©2023 Karen Kirsten (P)2024 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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In the summer of 1942, the Rabinowitz family narrowly escaped the Nazi ghetto in their Polish town by fleeing to the forbidding Bialowieza Forest. They miraculously survived two years in the woods—through brutal winters, Typhus outbreaks, and merciless Nazi raids—until they were liberated by the Red Army in 1944. After the war, they trekked across the Alps into Italy, where they settled as refugees before eventually immigrating to the United States.
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Great story with an added benefit
- By Scottsville Stu on 12-30-21
By: Rebecca Frankel
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Daughters of the Occupation
- A Novel of WWII
- By: Shelly Sanders
- Narrated by: Kathleen Gati
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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On one extraordinary day in 1940, Miriam Talan’s comfortable life is shattered. While she gives birth to her second child, a son she and her husband, Max, name Monya, the Soviets invade the Baltic state of Latvia and occupy the capital city of Riga, her home. Because the Talans are Jewish, the Soviets confiscate Max’s business and the family’s house and bank accounts, leaving them with nothing.
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It never ceases to break my heart …
- By Sherry M. Bianchi-Knod on 05-23-22
By: Shelly Sanders
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Us, After
- A Memoir of Love and Suicide
- By: Rachel Zimmerman
- Narrated by: Rachel Zimmerman
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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When a state trooper appeared at Rachel Zimmerman’s door to report that her husband had jumped to his death off a nearby bridge, she fell to her knees, unable to fully absorb the news. How could the man she’d married, a devoted father and robotics professor at MIT, have committed such a violent act? How would she explain this to her young daughters? And could she have stopped him? A longtime journalist, she probed obsessively, believing answers would help her survive. She interviewed doctors, suicide researchers, and a man who jumped off the same bridge and lived.
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There’s no “good suicide”
- By Amazon Customer on 07-05-24
By: Rachel Zimmerman
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The Daughter of Auschwitz
- My Story of Resilience, Survival and Hope
- By: Tova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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A powerful memoir by one of the youngest survivors of Auschwitz, Tova Friedman, following her childhood growing up during the Holocaust and surviving a string of near-death experiences in a Jewish ghetto, a Nazi labor camp, and Auschwitz.
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Very interesting and well told
- By Tracy F. on 03-31-23
By: Tova Friedman, and others
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The Dressmakers of Auschwitz
- The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive
- By: Lucy Adlington
- Narrated by: Lucy Adlington
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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At the height of the Holocaust, 25 young inmates of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp - mainly Jewish women and girls - were selected to design, cut, and sew beautiful fashions for elite Nazi women in a dedicated salon. It was work that they hoped would spare them from the gas chambers. This fashion workshop - called the Upper Tailoring Studio - was established by Hedwig Höss, the camp commandant’s wife, and patronized by the wives of SS guards and officers.
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Not what I expected given description and preview
- By Kaeli Mathes on 09-24-21
By: Lucy Adlington
What listeners say about Irena's Gift
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- nollafv
- 09-10-24
4 generations of survival
Heartfelt memoirs, beautifully written and read story (audible) about the effects of family members torn apart by war and the trauma it spreads in post war. The courage, battle of survival and selfless acts that is unimaginable. It’s just not another war survival story, you get to know the authors, her family, her intense history research and the mysteries that she had to piece together. I’m so moved and I absolutely loved this story!
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- M. McNichol
- 10-22-24
Incredible memoir of family, secrets and survival
An incredible memoir of how a family experienced and survived the holocaust and the secrets that impacted generations of a family. Karen Kirsten’s dedication and commitment to researching and visiting places relating to the unbelievable events and timelines of the Jewish holocaust and her family’s history is truly remarkable. As is her ability to beautifully tell the stories of her mother and grandparents with honesty and heart.
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- Kindle Customer
- 12-24-24
the book jumped around
I wish this book was a more linear story. it just didn't seem to come together very well. I've read over 100 books about the holocast and I think the reason this book is lacking is bc when you have a story not written in the 1st person who personally experienced the story it really looses some value. I wish this book was written in a way tht allows you to connect to the people. unfortunately this is written more like a family story with the intended audience being the family
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