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Rena's Promise

A Story of Sisters in Auschwitz

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About this listen

"I do not hate. To hate is to let Hitler win." - Rena Kornreich Gelissen.

On March 26, 1942, the first mass transport of Jews - 999 young women - arrived in Auschwitz. Among them was Rena Kornreich, the 716th woman numbered in camp. A few days later, her sister Danka arrives and so begins a trial of love and courage that will last three years and 41 days, from the beginning Auschwitz death camp to the end of the war.

Rena's Promise stands out from other memoirs not only for the mere length of time she spent in the camps (no other survivor from the first transport has ever written about her experience) but for her dedication to honoring the bonds between mothers, daughters, and sisters, prisoners, and even guards. From her escape from Dr. Mengele's experiment detail to her surreal meetings with SS woman Irma Grese, Rena tells a dynamic tale of courage and compassion that reminds us of the resiliency of the human spirit, and the power of people to help one another in unimaginable circumstances, be they Gentile or Jew, German or Pole, kapo or prisoner.

©1994 Heather Dune Macadan and Rena Kornreich Gelissen (P)2013 Heather Dune Macadam and Rena Kornreich Gelissen 20th Century Americas Europe Historical Jewish Heritage Military Modern United States Women War Holocaust Survival
All stars
Most relevant
Incredible story, just found the narrator annoying at times and there were also technical glitches, but it is definitely worth listening to. Sad but hopeful, an amazing testament.

Can’t fault the content

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Such resilience and positivity as well as inherent honesty saw arena survive for so long.

A remarkable woman

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This story is, like all the survivors’ stories, hugely important.

Unfortunately the author, who did such a good job capturing Rena’s story, decided to narrate this and as a result the audio suffers for want of a professional. At times it is so bad that it is hard to listen. Rena is often given a bizarre inflection like Marilyn Monroe which makes her sound foolish (which Rena certainly was not), while the Nazis are voiced as a child might when playing with toys. It is so strange and incongruous to hear these ridiculous caricatures that at points I’m afraid the important story is all but lost.

The production is also poor with background noise, repetition where she has misread, and jarring edits where she has spliced information in with sudden background noise or at a totally different volume.

This is well worth reading, but do yourself a favour and don’t listen to this.

Read the hard copy!

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A compelling story of one woman’s personal experience of Auschwitz. It is well read by the author.
I came to this after reading The Nine Hundred, the story of the first women’s transport to Auschwitz by the same author. That book was written later but it still worked very well reading that story, which includes Rena snd her sister, first.
We must bear witness and I have read many holocaust accounts. I would recommend this one.

Compelling story

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....i force myself to listen to as many accounts as i am drawn into...and i lose a piece of my heart in each...but it is a reality we need to know....🙏

The truth of the hell

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