Rena's Promise: A Story of Sisters in Auschwitz

by Rena Kornreich Gelissen, Heather Dune Macadam

Overview

An expanded edition of the powerful memoir about two sisters' determination to survive during the Holocaust featuring new and never before revealed information about the first transport of women to Auschwitz

Sent to Auschwitz on the first Jewish transport, Rena Kornreich survived the Nazi death camps for over three years. While there she was reunited with her sister Danka. Each day became a struggle to fulfill the promise Rena made to her mother when the family was forced to split apart--a promise to take care of her sister.

One of the few Holocaust memoirs about the lives of women in the camps, Rena's Promise is a compelling story of the fleeting human connections that fostered determination and made survival a possibility. From the bonds between mothers, daughters, and sisters, to the links between prisoners, and even prisoners and guards, Rena's Promise reminds us of the humanity and hope that survives inordinate inhumanity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807095096
Publisher:	Beacon Press
Publication date:	02/24/2015
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	385,150
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Rena Kornreich Gelissen lives with her husband in Hendersonville, North Carolina. Heather Dune Macadam, a freelance writer, lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Expanded Edition

Prologue

Chapter One Rena

Chapter Two Tylicz

Chapter Three Slovakia

Chapter Four Auschwitz

Chapter Five Birkenau (Auschwitz II)

Chapter Six Stabsgebaude (Staff quarters)

Chapter Seven Neustadt Glewe

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Bibliography

Study Guide

What People are Saying About This

Marcie Hershman

A woman's account of survival -- not sentimental, certainly not sweet or nostalgic, but guided through the abyss of evil and horror....A powerful work of witness and endurance.

Editorial Reviews

Imagining that, by volunteering for a work camp, she would somehow be protecting her family from the Nazis, Rena, at age 17, put on her best clothes, left her fianc and the Polish village of Tylicz in the Carpathian Mountains and was sent off to Auschwitz. Presently, her sister Danka arrived, as did cousins, schoolmates and neighbors. As a child, she had promised her mother to look after her baby sister, and that promise obsessed her throughout her incarceration in the camp. It gave her reason to survive, so that one day she could bring Danka safely home. How they escaped starvation, beatings, the crematorium, the medical experiments of the notorious Josef Mengele and survived the end of the war is all recounted here in this spirited survivor's testament, written with freelancer Macadam. After the war, Rena married a Red Cross worker and emigrated to the U.S., following her sister. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gelissen, who was on the first Jewish transport to Auschwitz, describes in this account the constant struggle for survival in the camp. She soon learns there were no guarantees. Rena's motivation came strongly from a promise to her parents to keep her younger sister, Danka, safe. Her account describes the relentless specter of death while at the same time showing how prisoners would risk their lives to smuggle medicine, clothes, and food to other prisoners. Because Rena was an early prisoner in Auschwitz, she describes some of the confusion at the beginning and the realization of what was really happening to the Jewish people. Helpful features of the book include historical notes and a section describing the fate of the people the sisters knew. This memoir captures the horror of Auschwitz in a clear way that helps the reader understand the atrocities perpetrated there. Recommended for Holocaust collections.-Mary Salony, West Virginia Northern Community Coll. Lib., Wheeling

Library Journal

"Rena’s Promise is written with simplicity and grace. . . . The overwhelming feeling upon finishing is one of triumph: It is still possible to find selflessness and human connection among people living in a place of relentless horror."—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“A poignant and important act of remembrance.” —Sir Martin Gilbert, author of The Holocaust: The Human Tragedy

“An extraordinary book, vividly written and generously told. You will not easily forget Rena Kornreich and her sister Danka. Nor should you. Harrowing as it often is, this is less a tragedy than a love story. By turns soul-wrenching, inspiring, and heartbreaking, this is a tale that should live long beyond the wonderful woman who inspired it.” —Alexandra Fuller, author of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight

“Through her actions during and after the Shoah, Rena Kornreich Gelissen ensured that out of the darkest night, the light of the survivors and their memory remained. Faced with destruction, she and the Jewish people survived.” —Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

“Rena’s Promise went with us on the Zen Peacemakers’ first pilgrimage to Auschwitz in 1996. On our first night together, one of our monks shared a simple message of love from Rena to us. Her message changed our lives.” —Peter Matthiessen, author of In Paradise
 
“One of the most accurate accounts, and the only account of the first women’s camp in Auschwitz. This is a book historians will refer to for years to come.” —Irena Strezlecka, director, Auschwitz Museum of Women, Oswiecim, Poland

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