If we seal off the past, how will we ever know the truth?
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 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, and to find the answers to baffling questions: why did her adoptive grandmother treat Karen’s mother so unkindly? Why did she hide the truth that she was her mother’s aunt? And why, if she appeared to dislike Karen’s mother, did she risk her life to save her?
Irena’s Gift weaves together a mystery, history and memoir to tell the story of sacrifice, impossible choices, and the way trauma reverberates throughout generations. From the glittering concert halls of interbellum Warsaw to the vermin-infested prison where a Jewish woman negotiates with an SS officer to save her sister’s child–– Irena’s Gift is about the lies we tell to survive and what happens when those lies unravel. 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.
GERALDINE BROOKS
Pulitzer Prize winning author
"IRENA'S GIFT interrogates the messy complexity of family, both its tenderness and nurture but also its corrosive anger and rejection. It's a disturbing investigation into the power of secrets to harm and to haunt."
THOMAS KENEALLY
Booker Prize winning author of Schindler's List
"News withheld and what is passed on in doubt and affections is always dramatic if it can be creatively depicted. Karen Kirsten more than fulfils that task of narration and enchantment here."
ARIANA NEUMANN
When Time Stopped
"One of the best second-generation Holocaust books ever published. I loved it and couldn’t put it down."
LUCY ADLINGTON
The Dressmakers of Auschwitz
"A powerful unravelling of mysteries and memory. IRENA'S GIFT deserves to become a classic of the memoir genre."
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MICHELLE BOWDLER
TIME's 100 Must-Read Books of 2020 author of
Is Rape a Crime?
"With extremism and fascism again threatening democracies, IRENA’S GIFT is a must-read for our times. Stunningly researched..."
MAYA LEE
The Nazis Knew My Name
"An extraordinary story of how secrets and lies can tear a family apart."
TARA MOSS
The War Widow & The Ghosts of Paris
"A story of extraordinary women, survival and sacrifice. A must read."
SUE SMETHURST
The Freedom Circus
"A story of love, healing, hope and humanity that will tug at your heartstrings."
KEVIN BIRMINGHAM
The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle For James Joyce's Ullyses
"Kirsten reminds us that sometimes heroes can be repulsive, and sometimes lies keep families together. IRENA'S GIFT is beautifully written, deeply researched and deeply felt."