An intense book, Irena's Gift,



by Karen Kirsten, characterized by numerous trips of the author, in the distant land of Poland.
It's a memoir, in fact. A real story.

No one knew, in fact, the truth on her family: no one knew that once born, her mother Joasia had been given, at first to an orphanage because her mother was dead and the father internated in a concentration camp, and later to a relative, growning-up in Australia.

Truth, like lies, define at the end the story of a family, giving to it an imprint.



Karen sometimes asked to her granny what was that curious number that there was in her hand, without receiving a proper answer: her granny hadn't never told her that she had been deported in a concentration camp.



Karen grew up with that sixth sense: you understand that there is somethung unsaid in that family, but that, at the same time, everything is perfect.



Because, after all isn't it in this way? Every family has its singularities and unicities.



But...



One day, a distant person, living in Canada, a certain Dick, Karen hadn't never heard of him before, sent them a big envelope, asking to see them.



And so, Karen understood the reality: that her mother Joasia had been grown up by the relatives of Irena, the wife of Dick, and that Dick was, her grandfather.



Mietek and Alicja were the adopted parents of Joasia, although, she didn't know that.



It's important to return at that distant times.



We speak of two couples pretty rich, influential Jews, in grade to going on during the last World War conflict because they were rich and they worked in Poland for Germans. There is the reconstruction of the city of Leopoli, Lwow in polish, and what the Ukrainians did to the local populations. There are observations of the author pretty remarkable and that I found interesting involving the current situation. Ukrainians at that time searched independance from Russia, helping the Nazis.



Irena and Dick were a happy couple, but at some point they were captured. Irena was killed immediately. Dick went in a concentration camp like Mietek and Alicja. The daughter of Dick was brought to an orphanage thanks to the help of an Ukrainian officer. Dick had still important jewels that passed to him. Paying, Dick obtained from the Ukrainian the certainty that the daughter would have been brought in a good and secure place.



Once the war was over, Dick and Mietek helped the Americans with the trials that would have followed against Nazis.



At the same time, once returned home, Dick fell in love for another girl and so he decided to give to the sister of Irena, his most precious gift: his daughter Joasia.



Joasia, remembers that hasn't never been loved by Alicja. Alicja hasn't never felt a great affection for her.



Karen's mother is christian and she finds in God the best answer to her prayers. Many are the thematic told in this book: one of them is the good relationship and interaction between catholics, christians and Jews.



Karen Kirsten afforded to Canada, and Poland, discovering also where was located the orphanage where the mother stayed, arranging a meeting of his mother with that sisters. She helped her mother to reconnect her own story with the one of Mietek, Alicja, but also Dick and Irena, visiting the place where Irena had been killed, and discovering also a family vein for music.



It is the story of a family: writing this, Keren puts an end to a history characterized by lies and secrets.

Highly recommended.

Holocaust, family-drama, family-dynamics, family-expectations, family-history, Poland, polish-army, polish-heritage, generations, WW2, cultural-exploration, cultural-heritage, memoir, historical-places-events, historical-research, historical-setting, history-and-culture, relationships, relatives, religious-practices*****

A conspiracy of silence to protect the children from the family suffering of the past.
There was so much that Karen's mother did not understand about her own childhood and especially her mother's attitudes. Later she came to understand some of it, including that everyone in their neighborhood knew about their past by voluntarily kept that information hidden from the children.
This is the first book I have read that spends a good amount of time relating what life in Poland was like before the Storm Troopers took over. All of that is enclosed within the author's (born and raised in Australia) search for answers to personal questions about her mother and grandparents that seem so enigmatic. There is also a lot of specific information regarding the history of Poland in the past, during WW2, and forward to the present. It details a very personal journey, but one whose contemporaries are vanishing.
The scars of war are not all visible, and some go on to the next generations.
There are illustrations/photos not visible in e-book format
I requested and received a free temporary EARC from Kensington Publishing | Citadel via NetGalley.

Irena's Gift by Karen Kirsten is a poignant, heart-stopping, harrowing, thoughtful and tragic true story about the far-reaching trauma of one multi-generational family's horrendous Holocaust experiences in German-occupied Poland. But there is also courage. resilience, perseverance and hope.

In times of war, humans go to great lengths to survive and resort to doing things they would find reprehensible in peacetime. In WWII, a piece of bread was more critical to immediate day-to-day survival than a suitcase full of money. Bribes worked at times, too, but didn't fill bellies.

Nana Alicja told author Karen Kirsten the tattoo on her arm was her phone number. As Karen grew older, she saw mysterious sides and inexplicable behaviors in her older family members and discovered the sinister truth about the tattoo and her family, far different than what she knew to be true at the time. Karen's mother Irena was taken to Dachau at the age of four to live with rescuers and her grandfather was the only survivor of ten at Radom Prison. Several very close calls occurred with miraculous escapes. If they hadn't happened, this family would be drastically different. But there are no words for what they endured at the hands of pure evil.

As an adult, Karen traveled with her mother from Australia to Poland to learn more. I cannot fathom what going to Nazi killing camps must be like for survivors and family of survivors. In this book, Karen also explores ancestry, religion and ethnicity. What does it mean to be Jewish?

This memoir is as thoroughly researched as humanly possible and written so beautifully my heart ached for the persecuted Jews and others who were barbaically and cruelly treated. I have read countless Holocaust books, but this is exceptional in its depth of feeling and personal impacts. It was necessary for me to regularly put this book aside for hours or a day to regroup. Nana's details gave me goosebumps such as Dr. Mengele's evil eyes sweeping over her, typhoid, her deathly fear of moths, creating faulty bullets, hidden jewels, the nightie significance, the war messing up calendars, Dick's turnip soup story, failed escape attempts, betrayals and liberation. Alicja weighed just 27 kg at Ravensbrück and Dick not much more. But the three hearts of the three women at the end shook me.

My sincere thank you to Kensington Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an early digital copy of this phenomenal book. The courage displayed in times of impossible situations is beyond comprehension. I am so grateful for families like this who tell their stories in spite of unspeakable memories and pain. You are true heroes and heroines.

'The thing about secrets is they are like a loose thread in a jumper; if you pull hard enough, the whole garment falls apart'.

Growing up in a Melbourne suburb, life seemed pretty ordinary for Karen. Other than gathering with the 'Polish Circus' of friends and extended family, her life was light years away from WW2 Poland: violence, starvation, ghettos, and concentration camps. However, as she became older, some things didn't reconcile: her Nana's tattoo wasn't a phone number, there was a lack of older family photos, and the relationship between Karen's mother, Joanna and her mother Alicja was oddly fraught. As pieces of a puzzle slowly appear, Karen decides to try and uncover the real picture of her family's history. Using, memoirs, taped conversations, visits to libraries, archives and Poland itself, the pain that has been so deeply buried, so carefully ignored, is unearthed, 'I have learned that stories we tell aren't always truthful. Truth, if we find it, can be ugly'.

'Irena's Gift' takes the reader on an astonishing journey of survival and incredible luck. As the story pivots between different timelines, what becomes apparent is the deeply rooted inter-generational trauma and sorrow, 'I will realise my family's traumas live inside of me, that my search for answers is in part to understand how the war, and orders to exterminate has impacted me'. Further, as Joanna chose to raise Karen as evangelical, the journey is not only about uncovering her family's history, but also a search for identity, 'What does it mean to be Jewish when your mother's raised you evangelical? Why does religion, ethnicity or ancestry even matter?'

There are many memoirs from Holocaust survivors. What I enjoyed about this one was trying to better understand the harm that continued to be caused in future generations. It's easy to believe the war stopped when the Allies won, liberating prisoners. It's easy to believe that those who chose to immigrate from their war-torn land, found a new chance at life. It's easy to read the facts of this horrible part of history, reciting numbers and dates; believing we remember. But, we will never comprehend the 'tragedy that ripples through the lives of survivors and transfers the scars to their children'.

It was the title that first attracted me to the book, I wanted to know who Irena was and what was her gift. Then when I read the blurb, I knew I had to know more about this family and what happened to them during the Holocaust.

Karen knew nothing of her family history during the Holocaust, in fact at age four when she asked her Nana about the number on her arm, her nana’s reply was that a man had put it there, that it was her phone number! It’s only later that it is revealed that Karen’s grandmother is not Joanna’s (Karen’s mum) biological mother. In fact, a woman called Irena and was Nana Alicja’s sister. When this is revealed a lot of things start to make more sense to Karen about how her Nana Alicja treats her mother Joanna differently to her Uncle Tony. As a child Joanna had nightmares about men in uniforms, and when she asked Alicja to explain she refuses to talk about it. Joanna’s parents Alicja & Mietek wanted her to pursue a career of their choosing such as law or engineering, but Joanna’s heart led her to pursue a career in teaching children’s art & history. When Tony, Joanna’s brother graduated medical school, a career choice they approved of they bought him a flashy white MG Convertible. When Joanna graduated her own chosen career training Alicja & Mietek bought her a pen. Mietek & Alicja wanted Joanna to marry a “well to do” Jewish man, again Joanna followed her own mind and path and married an Australian, the son of Swiss immigrants.
Joanna didn’t really know her full history until she received a letter from a stranger in Canada called Zdzislaw Przygoda. This man addressed her as Joasia, a different form of her name Joanna and had sent her photographs of her as a child. There was one of Alicja, and Irena who died in the war. As Joasia/Joanna stares at the photograph she looks at the dark- haired Irena and something just clicks into place, it’s like something has come unlocked or released and memories start flooding back. The writer of the letter, Zdzislaw says how he carried the photo of Joanna & Irena all through the camps. He goes on to say that Irena had been killed by the Germans and that they had always loved Joanna and he still loves her.
When Alicja first learns of the letter she is surprised and perhaps annoyed by that letter as when she first learns of its existence her remark is “Zdzislaw promised he would never tell!” She also admonishes Joanna saying “We were so good to you.” Joanna assures Alicja that she loves Alicja & Mietek even more knowing that they adopted her. “Secrets are like a loose thread in a jumper; if you pull hard enough, the whole garment falls apart” really does fit what happens when the letter arrives from Canada for Joasia/Joanna.

Joanna kept this letter hidden from Karen and her sister for years as Alicja made her promise not to tell them, as she thought that if they found out she was not their biological Nana she would somehow no longer love her. Joanna kind of reluctantly agrees but says she will not lie to her children if they ask her a direct question. When Karen met Zdzislaw and his mother Helena, she is told to call Zdzislaw “Uncle Dick” and to call Helena “babcia.” Zdislaw reveals more about what happened during the war, the majority of it Alicja seems to remember in a different way, she confuses dates, timelines and doesn’t remember certain things. Alicja blames Dick for a lot when it was him that helped them evade the Gestapo on numerous occasions, obtaining false papers that declared them Polish not Jewish which enabled Alicja & Mietek to live on the Aryan side of town. Keeping suspicion of them being resistance members or collaborators. Dick also obtained forged papers for Eljasz, Irena & Alicja’s father to help him get out of the ghetto but Eljasz delayed leaving and ended up never getting out of the ghetto.

It's sad that Alicja & Zdzislaw/Dick lived through the same atrocities and have such different versions of events. They both endured awful things during this time and I think perhaps Alicja maybe blames Zdzislaw/Dick for not protecting her sister Irena. Naturally Alicja is angry her sister did not survive, maybe she even feels a little guilty that she survived and Irena didn’t. What this family endured hiding in plain sight, thrown in jails, concentration camps, tortured, starving, beaten, the bribery and betrayal around them, living from hour to hour waiting to be caught and more is horrendous. I have to admit that had I gone through anything like the family in this book, I would probably not want to think or talk about. It is strange how Alicja can and will talk to Karen, her granddaughter about Holocaust, even initially arranging to watch Schindlers List with her, though in the end Alicja goes to see it with friends, yet she refuses to talk about the Holocaust with Joanna, her (adopted) daughter.

I found the book really compelling, the way the past affects how you live your life today. The way how despite being so young Josia/Joanna still had memories of the war and men in uniform but Alicja didn’t want to deal with explanations so she just ignored them and kept the realities away from her. The title of the book can have more than one meaning, Irena’s Gift could be that she gave her daughter to Alicja to raise as her own. Irena’s Gift could also be her sacrifice of selflessly giving up her child, Joasia/Joanna allowing her to be apart from her, to give her a better chance of survival. I think the title really fits the book very well.

Summing up, I found Irena’s Gift, an extremely interesting, informative memoir about the Holocaust and how it affected the different members and generations of one family not just during the war and Holocaust, but years and years later.

It is impossible to imagine the horror endured by the Holocaust victims. The author’s grandparents were survivors; her mother as a small child survived. The trauma affected them all in different ways. Repressed empathy. Transposing one’s own pain onto others. Blaming each other. Doing terrible things which would have been unthought of in peace time.
The author realized her family’s traumas impacted her and she traveled to Poland to learn what really happened within her family and understand their behavior. The story is told in an uneven timeline, but contains much of interest. While many relatives survived, the experience continued to haunt them for the rest of their lives.

An extremely interesting, emotional and fascinating journey backwards to the roots of Karen's family. A memoir which reads as a novel in two timelines which works perfectly in this novel. Indeed, Karen's personality has been taking shape two generations before she was even conceived! The trauma experienced by her grandparents, parents in Poland as Jewish people interned at Auschwitz could only impact on her own life. How, one might ask, when she knew next to nothing about their pasts (one did not talk about that, lied even)? Will this research into Karen's genealogical tree answer all questions regarding her family's behaviour? A harsh journey, very emotional, sometimes angering as well which Karen deemed necessary not only for herself but for her family as well. I found it fascinating particularly on a psychological level. Highly recommended.
I received a complimentary ARC of this novel from NetGalley and I am leaving voluntarily an honest review.