Irena’s Gift: An Epic WWII Memoir of Sisters, Secrets, and Survival/Author Event with Karen Kirsten

Join us for an in-person event with Karen Kirsten, to showcase Irena’s Gift.
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.
About the author: Karen Kirsten is the author of Irena’s Gift, a 2025 National Jewish Book Award Finalist––described by judges as “reads like a thriller”––winner of Zibby Awards for Best Family Drama & Best Story of Overcoming, and Australian Jewish Book Award finalist. Karen is an Australian-American writer and Holocaust educator who speaks around the world on the power of empathy to bridge divides and save lives. 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. Her writing has also appeared in Salon, The Week, The Huffington Post, The Jerusalem Post, Boston’s NPR, The Christian Post, The Sydney Morning Herald and more
Books will be for sale at this event.
Co-sponsored by the Avon Library and Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies.