Description
Holocaust books are seductive. Irena’s Gift is a case in point. We have heard and read so much, aware that despite eighty years having passed, memories of unimgineable horrors have barely diminished. Yet each new book inroduces another family, another saga with secrets that have laid hidden for decades.
When Australian author Karen Kirsten, raised as a Christian, receives an unexpected letter from Canada revealing her Jewish heritage, she is beyond astounded, She learns how her mother, the daugher of Irena, was smuggled from the Warsaw ghetto in a backpack. Alicja, Irena’s sister, Karen’s dearest relative, has kept the secret for decades.
Determined to get to the root of the remarkable story, Karen flies to Poland. She learns of her family’s comfortable, wealthy lifestyle is torn apart as the War begins, their dying in concentration camps, escapes, false papers, precarious jobs, attempts to defy the Nazis.Her trip is a whirlwind of discovery.
The book reads easily, but it demands attention to distinguish one rone relative from another, and contend with the different generations, the Polish names, reaching back and forth from past to present. Realizing that the pages tell facts not fiction, the book is not enjoyable, but terrifying.
