Award-winning author Karen Kirsten’s book is the captivating account of her quest to piece together her family’s hidden history.
Karen will be discussing her mother’s remarkable story of Holocaust survival after she was born in the Warsaw ghetto and smuggled out in a backpack, and the letter her mother received in Melbourne when she was thirty-two that shattered everything she thought she knew about herself and her family. A story of love and trauma, Karen’s experiences will resonate especially with those familiar with the silences that pervade the homes of Holocaust survivors.
Image | Courtesy of Imperial War Museum London
Karen Kirsten is the author of Irena’s Gift, shortlisted for the 2024 Leslie and Sophie Caplan Award for Jewish Non-Fiction and the US National Jewish Book Award and winner of two Zibby Awards for Best Family Drama & Best Story of Overcoming (US). A former business executive, Karen is an Australian writer and Holocaust educator who lives in the US. Her essay, “Searching for the Nazi Who Saved My Mother’s Life” was nominated for The Best American Essays. Karen’s writing has also appeared in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, Good Weekend, Salon, Huffington Post, The Week, The Jerusalem Post, WIEZ in Poland, Boston’s National Public Radio station, and more.
