Rena's Promise: Celebrating Women of Character, Courage and Commitment

This year’s National Women's History Month theme is Celebrating Women of Character, Courage, and Commitment. What better way to “honor the extraordinary and often unrecognized determination and tenacity of women… and the importance of writing women back into history,” than to learn about two sisters (Rena and Danka) who survived over three years in Auschwitz death camp by committing themselves to love, compassion and courage? Cousins, Robert Gelissen and Sara Cohen talk about their families, their mothers, and their online work with co-author of Rena’s Promise, Heather Dune Macadam, to honor the first women in Auschwitz. Today, with the help of Yad Vashem, the Promise Project, has been able to find the names of everyone on the first mass registered transport to Auschwitz. All 999 girls between the ages of 16-22, sent to Auschwitz as slave labor; paid for by the Slovakian government. Today the Rena’s Promise Foundation is working to chronicle the names and lives of each of those girls, so we can never forget the first women. Rena’s Promise was nominated for a National Book Award in 1995, and was a best-seller on Kindle in 2012 when the new digital edition was released. It is not available in audio, as well. http://www.renaspromise.com/