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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Story
On March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Filled with a sense of adventure and national pride, they left their parents' homes wearing their best clothes and confidently waving good-bye. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months, they were eager to report for government service. Instead, the young women - many of them teenagers - were sent to Auschwitz. Their government paid 500 Reich Marks (about $200) apiece for Nazis to take them as slave labor. Of those 999 innocent deportees, only a few survived.
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I don’t think you can ever fully understand
- By Shelley on 02-25-20
By: Heather Dune Macadam, and others
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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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War and Genocide
- A Concise History of the Holocaust
- By: Doris L. Bergen
- Narrated by: Collene Curran
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In examining one of the defining events of the twentieth century, Doris L. Bergen situates the Holocaust in its historical, political, social, cultural, and military contexts. Unlike many other treatments of the Holocaust, this revised, third edition discusses not only the persecution of the Jews, but also other segments of society victimized by the Nazis: Roma, homosexuals, Poles, Soviet POWs, the disabled, and other groups deemed undesirable.
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Agency - the capacity or state of exerting power
- By Angela on 03-22-17
By: Doris L. Bergen
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The Library Thief
- A Novel
- By: Kuchenga Shenjé
- Narrated by: Cora Kirk
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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1896. After he brought her home from Jamaica as a baby, Florence's father had her hair hot-combed to make her look like the other girls. But as a young woman, Florence is not so easy to tame—and when she brings scandal to his door, the bookbinder throws her onto the streets of Manchester. Intercepting her father's latest commission, Florence talks her way into the remote, forbidding Rose Hall to restore its collection of rare books. Lord Francis Belfield's library is old and full of secrets—but none so intriguing as the whispers about his late wife.
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More than expected!
- By charles james on 07-17-24
By: Kuchenga Shenjé
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A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth
- The Making of the Port of Los Angeles and America
- By: James Tejani
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 12 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The Port of Los Angeles is all around us. Objects we use on a daily basis pass through it: furniture, apparel, electronics, automobiles, and much more. Yet despite its centrality to our world, the port and the story of its making have been neglected in histories of the United States. In A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth, historian James Tejani corrects that significant omission, charting the port's rise out of the mud and salt marsh of San Pedro estuary.
By: James Tejani
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Irena's Children
- The Extraordinary Story of the Woman Who Saved 2,500 Children from the Warsaw Ghetto
- By: Tilar J. Mazzeo
- Narrated by: Amanda Carlin
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1942 one young social worker, Irena Sendler, was granted access to the Warsaw Ghetto as a public health specialist. While she was there, she began to understand the fate that awaited the Jewish families who were unable to leave. Soon she reached out to the trapped families, going from door to door and asking them to trust her with their young children. She started smuggling children out of the walled district, convincing her friends and neighbors to hide them.
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So worth reading...
- By Jan on 10-07-16
By: Tilar J. Mazzeo
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This Ordinary Stardust
- A Scientist's Path from Grief to Wonder
- By: Alan Townsend PhD
- Narrated by: Alan Townsend PhD
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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At a time when society’s relationship with science is increasingly polarized while threats to human life on earth continue to rise, Townsend offers a balanced, moving perspective on the common ground between science and religion through the spiritual fulfillment he found in his work. Awash in Townsend's electrifying and breathtaking prose, THIS ORDINARY STARDUST offers hope that life can carry on even in the face of near-certain annihilation.
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Did not like it
- By CR on 09-16-24
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Practically Still a Virgin
- An Adoption Memoir
- By: Monica Hall
- Narrated by: Monica Hall
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Practically Still a Virgin is the riveting memoir of a fifteen-year-old adoptee’s rape—and the pregnancy that changed her life. During Alaska’s rough-and-tumble 1970s oil boom, a time when prostitution, violence, and lawlessness reigned, Monica Hall rebels against her strict Catholic parents in a downward spiral of delinquency. Overwhelmed by guilt and shame when the unthinkable happens, Hall is forced to make impossible choices. Will she keep her rapist’s identity a secret and defy her parents when they demand to know who fathered her baby?
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5 stars
- By Anonymous User on 11-19-24
By: Monica Hall
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The Holocaust
- An Unfinished History
- By: Dan Stone
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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The Holocaust is much discussed, much memorialized, and much portrayed. But there are major aspects of its history that have been overlooked. Spanning the entirety of the Holocaust, this sweeping history deepens our understanding. Dan Stone—Director of the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London—reveals how the idea of “industrial murder” is incomplete: many were killed where they lived in the most brutal of ways.
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propaganda
- By Anonymous User on 05-17-24
By: Dan Stone
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The Holocaust Codes
- The Untold Story of Decrypting the Final Solution
- By: Christian Jennings
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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The urgent, dramatic and untold story of how, for four years, British and Allied codebreakers decrypted secret SS and Gestapo messages detailing the mass killings of the Holocaust, and how the Germans in turn deployed cryptanalysis to try to conceal their persecution of Europe's Jews. The compelling and fast-paced story is told by two central and opposing characters, who never meet each other.
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Seeing Through
- A Chronicle of Sex, Drugs, and Opera
- By: Ricky Ian Gordon
- Narrated by: Ricky Ian Gordon
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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At eight years old, Ricky Ian Gordon pulled The Victor Book of Opera off his piano teacher’s bookshelf, and his world shifted on its axis. Though scandal, sadness, and confusion would shake that world over the next few decades, its polestar remained constant. Music has been the guiding force of Gordon’s life; through it, he has been able not only to survive great sorrow but also to capture the depths of his emotion in song. It is this strength, this technical and visceral genius, that has made him one of our generation’s greatest composers.
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Wow.
- By John G. on 11-03-24
By: Ricky Ian Gordon
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...And a Hard Rain Fell
- A GI's True Story of the War in Vietnam
- By: John Ketwig
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 15 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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The classic Vietnam war memoir, ...and a hard rain fell is the unforgettable story of a veteran's rage and the unflinching portrait of a young soldier's odyssey from the roads of upstate New York to the jungles of Vietnam. Updated for its twentieth anniversary with a new afterword on the Iraq War and its parallels to Vietnam, John Ketwig's message is as relevant today as it was twenty years ago.
By: John Ketwig
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Montecito Noir
- True Stories of Murder & Mayhem in Paradise
- By: Steven Gilbar
- Narrated by: Pamela Dillman
- Length: 2 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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True stories of murder, manslaughter and madness in on of America's most exclusive communities.
By: Steven Gilbar
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The Paris Widow
- By: Kimberly Belle
- Narrated by: Marni Penning, Patrick Zeller
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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When Stella met Adam, she thought she had finally found a nice, normal guy—a welcome change from her previous boyfriend and her precarious jetsetter lifestyle with him. But her secure world comes crashing down when Adam goes missing after an explosion in the city square. Unable to reach him, she panics. As the French police investigate, it’s revealed that Adam was on their radar as a dealer of rare and stolen antiquities with a long roster of criminal clients. Reeling from this news, Stella is determined not to leave Paris until she has the full story.
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Narration was too much
- By Chelse on 06-30-24
By: Kimberly Belle
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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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Daughters of Shandong
- By: Eve J. Chung
- Narrated by: Yu-Li Alice Shen
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Daughters are the Ang family’s curse. In 1948, civil war ravages the Chinese countryside, but in rural Shandong, the wealthy, landowning Angs are more concerned with their lack of an heir. Hai is the eldest of four girls and spends her days looking after her sisters. Headstrong Di, who is just a year younger, learns to hide in plain sight, and their mother—abused by the family for failing to birth a boy—finds her own small acts of rebellion in the kitchen.
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Compelling writing, captivating story
- By Amazon Customer on 07-25-24
By: Eve J. Chung
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Things Don't Break on Their Own
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Easter Collins
- Narrated by: Christina Cole, Emily Lucienne, Nathalie Buscombe
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Twenty-five years ago, a young girl left home to walk to school. Her younger sister soon followed. But one of them arrived, and one of them didn’t. Her sister’s disappearance has defined Willa’s life. Everyone thinks her sister is dead, but Willa knows she isn’t. Because there are some things that only sisters know about each other—and some bonds only sisters can break. When Willa is invited to a party thrown by her first love, she has no reason to expect it will be anything other than an ordinary evening But nothing about Willa’s life has been ordinary since the day her sister disappeared.
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So Very Good
- By debhud on 07-17-24
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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- 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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- 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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