“I do not hate. To hate is to let Hitler win.” – Rena Kornreich Gelissen
“The most important book of the modern age!” – Neal Lavon, Voice of America
“The most historically accurate book ever written of the first transport of women into Auschwitz–the only book ever written by a survivor of that transport, who survived 3 years and 41 days in the camps.” – Irena Strezlecka, Director of the Museum of Women at Auschwitz
On March 26, 1942, the first transport of women arrived in Auschwitz. Among the 999 young Jewish women 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 3 years and 41 days, from the beginning of the Auschwitz death camp to the end of the war.
Rena’s Promise stands out from other memoirs in mere length of time she spent in the camps. No other survivor from the first transport has ever written about her experience and what it meant to survive for so long as a peasant and a hard laborer who spent 10-12 hours a day making bricks, pushing lorries, sifting sand, performing cartwheels….
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.
Visit www.renaspromise.com to see photos and art.
Visit Amazon’s Heather Dune Macadam Page
HEATHER DUNE MACADAM’S first book, RENA’S PROMISE: A STORY OF SISTERS IN AUSCHWITZ, is a memoir about the 716th woman in Auschwitz. Published by Beacon Press in October 1995, and nominated for the National Book Award, the Christopher Awards, the American Jewish Awards and the National Library Association Awards. RENA’S PROMISE has been published in the United Kingdom, Turkey, Japan and Germany (where it was book of the month in Sept. 1997). Ms. Macadam is active in fighting against Holocaust denial social networks by disseminating Rena’s story through YouTube, MySpace and her fan club on Facebook.
THE WEEPING BUDDHA, Ms. Macadam’s first novel, was released by Akashic Books in 2003. Based in part on a true story it is the fiction that attempts to deal with an unsolved mystery in Ms. Macadam’s life and was nominated for an Edgar; it was a finalist in the Nero Wolf Awards (2004); it was also a finalist for Best Mystery in the Lambda Awards (2004).
As commentator for NPR, Ms. Macadam’s quirky essays can be heard on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. Additionally, she has been published inThe New York Times, Newsweek, Marie Claire, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, YOU Magazine (Sunday Supplement to Mail on Sunday), The Advocate and RACING HOME: SHORT STORIES BY AWARD-WINNING NORTH CAROLINA WRITERS (Paper Journey Press) where one reviewer referred to her as “an archangel with an avenging pen.”
Ms. Macadam began her career as a performance artist and dancer with the Martha Graham Contemporary Dance Company. After an accident prematurely ended her performing career she began writing. Dancers are fairly quiet people but since she discovered writing, she hasn’t shut up!
She received a Masters in Creative Writing from Southampton College, where she studied with Jules Feiffer, Roger Rosenblatt, Kaylie Jones (A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries), and Booker Prize nominees, Gerard O’ Donovan and Brian O’Doherty. She has been awarded SCAD Presidential Grant for Research (2006) to conduct research on the poet Phillis Wheatley, a PEN American stipend (1997), THE WINSTON-SALEM EMERGING ARTIST GRANT (1996), OUTSTANDING WRITER OF THE YEAR in North Carolina (1995), and THE RONDTHALER AWARD for poetry (1993). She divides her time between New York and Herefordshire, England, and is a frequent visitor to Hay on Wye and the Hay Literary Festival.
Ms. Macadam teaches Creative Nonfiction and Journalism at SUNY Stony Brook Southampton and Creative Writing at the Young American Writers Program at Southampton College’s renowned Summer Writer’s Conference (regular guests to her classes include: Billy Collins, Frank McCourt, Melissa Banks and Amy Tan).
Visit Amazon’s Rena Kornreich Gelissen Page
“The most important book of the modern age!” — Neal Lavon, Voice of America
“The most historically accurate book ever written of the first transport of women into Auschwitz–the only book ever written by a survivor of that transport, who survived 3 years and 41 days in the camps.”
Irena Strezlecka, Director of the Museum of Women at Auschwitz
How do you go from being a grandmother to a writer? Well, you need someone with kind eyes to sit across from you so when you tell your story you can see your tears reflected in hers and you know what you went through is not only real, but touching the next generation.
If I have any motto for life after 3 years in Auschwitz it is this: The heart is only so big. So I do not hate. To hate is to let Hitler win. Please pass it on. Love, Rena
You can friend me on Facebook now renas promise – no apostrophe – and visit our website www.renaspromise.com where you can see photos of my family.
Used at Brown University in the Psychology Dept and in Holocaust programs at the college and secondary school levels.
And here, in the comfort of your own browser, is your free sample of RENA’S PROMISE: TWO SISTERS IN AUSCHWITZ, by Rena Kornreich Gelissen and Heather Dune Macadam:
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