Rena's Promise cover art

Rena's Promise

A Story of Sisters in Auschwitz

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Rena's Promise

By: Rena Kornreich Gelissen, Heather Dune Macadam
Narrated by: Heather Dune Macadam
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £13.99

Buy Now for £13.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

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 Military Modern United States Women War Prisoners of War Holocaust

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Five Chimneys cover art
Inside the Gas Chambers cover art
What the Night Sings cover art
The Girl Who Escaped From Auschwitz: cover art
The Long Night cover art
Emilia cover art
Between Shades of Gray cover art
Snow on the Tulips cover art
The Violinist of Auschwitz cover art
Escape from Sobibor cover art
White Lines cover art
Prisoner B-3087 cover art
The Brothers of Auschwitz cover art
The Palest Ink cover art
My Mother's Ring cover art
The Revolution of Marina M. cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
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!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
....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

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Rena and her sister went through hell . Their daily fight for survival is beyond imagination for us who can just walk to the cupboard if we are hungry or thirsty.
The cruelty is unbelievable. I can not get it into my mind how a human can do to another what they did to the prisoners and not just Auschwitz.
How could they sleep at nights? How could they carry on as if they did nothing wrong after the war? These people don't have any conscious if they think it was ok.
I am happy that Rena and Darla had a happy life after all they've been through.

The story was gripping but I have a little issue with the way it was presented. sometimes it was just read out as if a pupil in class was bored of reading it.
partly there were no emotions like I've experienced it in other books. That's the reason why I gave only 3 stars for the performance.

This is beyond the imaginable

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
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

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Such resilience and positivity as well as inherent honesty saw arena survive for so long.

A remarkable woman

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is not an uplifting book . This brings home the true horror of the holocaust with no Hollywood flannel . Hard to believe this was happening in Europe 70 years ago .

Heart Breaking

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
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

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The recording of this audio book is awful the narrator has self edited and recorded over her recording, the audio jumps and repeats itself which is annoying. All through the book there is back ground noise and a bell and it turns out it is the narrators cat! Unbelievable. The story was the only thing that kept me going as I would have requested a refund because the audio quality was so bad. An amazing story of human strength and courage in the face of adversity. Thank you for sharing your story Rena.

Awful annoying narrator and co-author but persevere Rena's promise is an amazing story of hope and courage

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The story is important and worthy of a listen but the performance is awful. Apart from the accent and the style of the reader, it is as if she has recorded it at home. You can hear whirring and noises in the background and this is abrasive. A real disappointment.

Honest and emotional story ruined by narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The story is very inspiring if you can endure the reader. I think the author recorded it at home on her personal computer without any guidance and it shows. Her vocal inflections are forced and annoying. I would love to hear this story performed by a professional with some experience!

Wonderful story but awful reader

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.