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  • Irena's Gift

  • An Epic WWII Memoir of Sisters, Secrets, and Survival
  • By: Karen Kirsten
  • Narrated by: Karen Kirsten
  • Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
  • 5.0 out of 5 stars (4 ratings)

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Irena's Gift

By: Karen Kirsten
Narrated by: Karen Kirsten
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Publisher's summary

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 Books
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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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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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