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Irena's Gift: An Epic WWII Memoir of Sisters, Secrets, and Survival (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780806543666)
Vendor:
Karen Kirsten
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Books
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Description
xA National Jewish Book Awards Finalist
WINNER, ZIBBY AWARDS FOR BEST FAMILY DRAMA & BEST STORY OF OVERCOMING Weaving mystery, history and memoir, Irena's Gift is the captivating account of one woman's personal quest to uncover the unspoken and give voice to her family's secret war-torn history.
From the glittering concert halls of interbellum Warsaw to the vermin-infested prison where an SS officer is convinced to save a Jewish child's life, to the author's upbringing in a Christian home, this is a story of resilience, sacrifice, Jewish identity, intergenerational trauma, and the secrets we keep to protect ourselves and those we love. For readers of When Time Stopped by Ariana Neumann, I Want You to Know We're Still Here by Esther Safran Foer, and House of Glass by Hadley Freeman. "Irena's Gift interrogates the messy complexity of family, both its tenderness and nurture but also its corrosive anger and rejection." --GERALDINE BROOKS, New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner "I'm here to find an SS officer," I told the muscled man in uniform peering at me through the sentry window at the Berlin Archives.
"The man saved my mother," I added in German, smiling at the guard almost apologetically. 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 32, 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. Piecing 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 10 survived, her grandfather the only known Jewish one--Karen finds answers, yet not easy ones. As she exposes her family's saga of love and betrayal, and the astounding negotiation with an SS officer who saved her mother's life, Karen must reconcile the complicated truths behind human behavior. Irena's Gift weaves together a mystery, history, and memoir to tell a story of sacrifice, impossible choices, impossible odds, and the way trauma reverberates throughout generations. Yet it is also a story of resilience and bravery, revealing how love and hope, too, can not only prevail through the worst imaginable circumstances, but resonate through time.
Author: Karen Kirsten
ISBN-10: 0806543663
ISBN-13: 9780806543666
Publisher: Citadel Press
Language: English
Published: 07/28/2026
Pages: 352
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.81lbs
WINNER, ZIBBY AWARDS FOR BEST FAMILY DRAMA & BEST STORY OF OVERCOMING Weaving mystery, history and memoir, Irena's Gift is the captivating account of one woman's personal quest to uncover the unspoken and give voice to her family's secret war-torn history.
From the glittering concert halls of interbellum Warsaw to the vermin-infested prison where an SS officer is convinced to save a Jewish child's life, to the author's upbringing in a Christian home, this is a story of resilience, sacrifice, Jewish identity, intergenerational trauma, and the secrets we keep to protect ourselves and those we love. For readers of When Time Stopped by Ariana Neumann, I Want You to Know We're Still Here by Esther Safran Foer, and House of Glass by Hadley Freeman. "Irena's Gift interrogates the messy complexity of family, both its tenderness and nurture but also its corrosive anger and rejection." --GERALDINE BROOKS, New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner "I'm here to find an SS officer," I told the muscled man in uniform peering at me through the sentry window at the Berlin Archives.
"The man saved my mother," I added in German, smiling at the guard almost apologetically. 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 32, 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. Piecing 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 10 survived, her grandfather the only known Jewish one--Karen finds answers, yet not easy ones. As she exposes her family's saga of love and betrayal, and the astounding negotiation with an SS officer who saved her mother's life, Karen must reconcile the complicated truths behind human behavior. Irena's Gift weaves together a mystery, history, and memoir to tell a story of sacrifice, impossible choices, impossible odds, and the way trauma reverberates throughout generations. Yet it is also a story of resilience and bravery, revealing how love and hope, too, can not only prevail through the worst imaginable circumstances, but resonate through time.
Author: Karen Kirsten
ISBN-10: 0806543663
ISBN-13: 9780806543666
Publisher: Citadel Press
Language: English
Published: 07/28/2026
Pages: 352
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.81lbs
By Karen Kirsten
xKaren Kirsten is a writer and Holocaust educator who lectures on the topics of hatred and reconciliation around the world. Her work has appeared in Salon.com, The Week, The Jerusalem Post, WIEZ in Poland, Boston's National Public Radio station, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, and her Best American Essays-nominated piece, "Searching for the Nazi Who Saved My Mother's Life," was selected as a Narratively Best Ever story. Raised in Australia by a mother who was a Holocaust survivor who became a born again Christian and grandparents who silenced her questions about extermination camps, Karen lived amongst refugees who were hiding horrible secrets while trying to rebuild their identities. After discovering her grandparents were not her biological grandparents, she traveled the globe to uncover her family's hidden past. She has lived in five countries across three continents and now calls Massachusetts home. She can be found online at KarenKirsten.com.
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