Rose's Odyssey

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice. War separated newlywed Rose Kryger from her husband. Finding him was only the beginning. In the opening days of World War II, German forces occupied Rose’s hometown of Lódz, Poland. Determined to reunite with her husband, Rose fled east with her sister Ghenia and Ghenia’s six-year-old son, Zvi. Their search became an epic six-year, 18,000-kilometer odyssey across a continent transformed by war. They crossed borders under threat of arrest, endured exile and forced labor in the Russian north, confronted starvation, illness, bitter cold, homelessness, and repeated displacement, and kept moving in the hope that somewhere ahead they would find safety. Through every upheaval, family bonds and small acts of human kindness helped them survive. For forty years, Rose never spoke about those experiences. Then, during a family Passover reunion at Zvi’s home in Rome, the memories began to surface. Rose’s recollections, together with the childhood memories of Zvi—later known as Henry Welch—and the perspective of Meir Kryger, became “Rose’s Odyssey*. Intimate, direct, and deeply human, this is a story of persecution without surrender, suffering without the loss of hope, and one family’s long journey toward freedom.