Irena's Gift

An Epic WWII Memoir of Sisters, Secrets, and Survival

By: Karen Kirsten

Narrated by: Karen Kirsten

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

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!

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.

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

Totally flat

I wanted to like this book. Maybe as a 2G Holocaust survivor I’m so much closer to this history that I just couldn’t swallow the lack of depth and introspection and absence of feeling. There were some more interesting parts, like how she recreated the life of her adopted grandparents in Poland but I had to stop listening, it was too disconnected for me, it read like a listing of facts, not as a journey that had a tangible emotional stake.