WWII survivor SAVED BY A BACKPACK

A REMARKABLE STORY IS BEING SHARED FOR THE FIRST TIME

- Emma Levett

Joasia Kirsten grew up feeling like she didn’t belong. She had violent nightmares and remembered a place she was hidden as a child, but her parents didn’t want to talk about it.

A Polish Jew, Joasia and her family arrived in Melbourne as refugees after World War II.

They had been through some unthinkably traumatic experiences, and, as a result, Joasia’s life became shrouded in secrets, created in the mistaken belief they’d protect her. It was only when Joasia was in her thirties that she finally discovered the truth.

Joasia’s daughter, Karen Kirsten, tells New Idea her mother received a letter from Canada from a man who said he was her father.

“It explained [Joasia] had been smuggled out of the Warsaw ghetto as a baby in a backpack and then cared for by her mother’s sister,” Karen reveals.

Joasia’s biological mother, Irena, died during the war, and the parents Joasia had grown up with, Alicja and Mietek, were in fact her maternal aunt and uncle.