Epic WWII Memoir Featured in Gramercy Books Holocaust Memorial Day Program!

Join writer and Holocaust educator Karen Kirsten to learn more about her memoir, , an epic World War II memoir of sisters, secrets, and survival--a finalist for Zibby Book Award for Best Family Drama and Best Story of Overcoming and for the Australian Jewish Book Award. In an exclusive Holocaust Remembrance Day program, Kirsten will be in conversation with noted Holocaust historian Dr. Robin Judd.

The purchase of Irena’s Gift waives the $5 registration fee.

JEWISHCOLUMBUS, JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER, MELTON CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES AT OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, AND THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AT OHIO STATE are Gramercy’s Community Partners for this program.

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 Pr*son 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.

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 Pr*son, where of 500 resistance members tortured, only 10 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.

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.

Karen Kirsten is an Australian-American writer and Holocaust educator who speaks on the topics of hatred and reconciliation around the world. Karen’s essay “Searching for the Nazi Who Saved My Mother’s Life” was selected by Narratively as one of their Best Ever stories and nominated for The Best American Essays. Karen’s writing has also appeared in Salon.com, Huffington Post, The Week, The Jerusalem Post, WIĘŹ in Poland, Boston’s National Public Radio station, The Boston Herald, The Christian Post, The Sydney Morning Herald and more.

Robin Judd is a specialist in Jewish, transnational, and gender history, with particular interests in Holocaust studies and the history of antisemitism. She is the author of Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust (winner of the National Jewish Book Awards for Women's Studies & Writing Based on Archival Material and a finalist for the Ohioana Book Award) and Contested Rituals: Circumcision, Kosher Butchering, and German-Jewish Political Life in Germany, 1843-1933. Judd is the Past President of the Association for Jewish Studies, the largest international learned society and professional organization representing Jewish studies and is a voting member of Ohio's Holocaust and Genocide Memorial and Education Commission. She has received seven teaching awards, including the OSU Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching.

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