By Rena Kornreich Gelissen
Despatched to Auschwitz at the first Jewish shipping, Rena Kornreich survived the Nazi loss of life camps for over 3 years. whereas there she was once reunited along with her sister Danka. on a daily basis grew to become a fight to satisfy the promise Rena made to her mom whilst the family members used to be pressured to separate apart--a promise to maintain her sister. one of many few Holocaust memoirs in regards to the lives of ladies within the camps, Rena's Promise is a compelling tale of the fleeting human connections that fostered decision and made survival achieveable. From the bonds among moms, daughters, and sisters, to the hyperlinks among prisoners, or even prisoners and guards, Rena's Promise reminds us of the humanity and wish that survives inordinate inhumanity.
Read Online or Download Rena's Promise PDF
Similar holocaust books
Our Crime Was Being Jewish: Hundreds of Holocaust Survivors Tell Their Stories
Within the shouted phrases of a lady sure for Auschwitz to a guy approximately to flee from a farm animals automobile, “If you get out, perhaps you could inform the tale! Who else will inform it? ”
Our Crime was once Being Jewish comprises 576 bright thoughts of 358 Holocaust survivors. those are the real, insider tales of sufferers, informed of their personal phrases. They contain the stories of little ones who observed their mom and dad and siblings despatched to the gasoline chambers; of ravenous youngsters crushed for attempting to scouse borrow a morsel of foodstuff; of people that observed their pals devote suicide to save lots of themselves from the day-by-day soreness they persisted. The memories are from the beginning of the war—the domestic invasions, the Gestapo busts, and the ghettos—as good because the day-by-day hell of the focus camps and what really occurred inside.
Six million Jews have been killed within the Holocaust, and this hefty number of tales instructed by way of its survivors is among the most vital books of our time. It was once compiled through award-winning writer Anthony S. Pitch, who labored with assets equivalent to the USA Holocaust Memorial Museum to get survivors’ tales compiled jointly and to complement them with photographs from the struggle. those thoughts needs to be instructed and held onto so what occurred is documented; so the lives of these who perished will not be forgotten—so historical past doesn't repeat itself.
This profile appears to be like at how Stalin, regardless of being considered as intellectually inferior by means of his competitors, controlled to upward thrust to energy and rule the most important nation on the planet, achievieving divine-like prestige as a dictator. via lately exposed study fabric and Stalin’s information in Moscow, Kuromiya analyzes how and why Stalin was once a unprecedented, even distinctive, baby-kisser who actually lived via politics by myself.
The Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution
Nearly all of Bulgaria's Jewish electorate escaped the horrors of the Polish demise camps and survived both emigrate to Israel or to stay of their place of birth. Frederick Chary relates the historical past of the Bulgarian government's coverage towards the Jews and the way the decision and ethical braveness of a small nation may well effectively thwart the ultimate answer.
- A Hero's Many Faces: Raoul Wallenberg in Contemporary Monuments (Holocaust and Its Contexts)
- I Cannot Forgive
- I Shall Live: Surviving the Holocaust Against All Odds
- And the witnesses were silent: the Confessing Church and the persecution of the Jews
- Contested Land, Contested Memory: Israel's Jews and Arabs and the Ghosts of Catastrophe
Additional resources for Rena's Promise
Sample text
Page 9 She pauses, looking across the room as if someone were standing there in front of her, someone I cannot see. Leaning forward, she smooths the cloth on the coffee table, making sure that the edges lie perfectly flat and at right angles to the table. She switches topics and begins to speak tenderly of the holidays. Frania was one of my best friends. She'd come over to our house to celebrate Sukkot, the harvest festival. We'd build an open-air shelter which we hung with little baskets with chestnuts or apples in them, colorful rings of paper, and nuts from the roof, which was made of tree branches.
Mama began to lament. I had never seen her so distraught. Slowly, she covered Danka's head with a white sheet and her baby blanket. . I was only three, but I remember wanting to wipe away Mama's tears and I prayed to God in heaven to bring my baby sister back to Mama. Then there was a wail from beneath the blanket. First there was terrora ghost, an apparition, something unknowable had entered our house. But the wailing did not stop. Mama ran to Page 8 Danka's side, threw back the blanket, and there she was, red-faced and breathing and not at all happy about being covered up.
My knees sank. Mama scrutinized me, but I did not even look at his face. "Welcome, Andrzej. " Papa offered him a chair. " Mama and I watched them from the other room. "Thank you, Mr. " Andrzej took the cigarette with a grateful nod. . This is very difficult for me, but I must ask. It is no longer safe in Tylicz for Rena. " "I heard what happened last night, Mr. Kornreich. " "Sir, I would not take any money from you. She is my friend since childhood. " Papa paused, stroking his chin where his beard should have been.