
I Shall Live
Surviving the Holocaust Against All Odds
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $25.78
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Henry Orenstein
-
By:
-
Henry Orenstein
About this listen
I Shall Live tells the gripping true story of a Jewish family in Germany and Russia as the Nazi party gained power in Germany. When Henry Orenstein and his siblings ended up in a series of concentrations camps, Orenstein's bravery and quick thinking help him to save himself and his brothers from execution by playing a role in the greatest hoax ever pulled on the upper echelons of Nazi command. Orenstein's lucid prose recreates this horrific time in history and his constant struggle for survival as the Nazis move him and his brothers through five concentration camps. His description of their roles in the fake Chemical Commando sheds new light on an incredible and generally unknown event in the history of the Holocaust. This edition of I Shall Live contains new evidence about this false Commando, including letters signed to and from Himmler himself.
Orenstein, aside from being a Holocaust survivor, has made a name for himself as a toymaker who called for the production of Transformers, as well as a poker player.
©1987 Henry Orenstein (P)1996 Common Mode Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Daughter of Auschwitz
- My Story of Resilience, Survival and Hope
- By: Tova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A powerful memoir by one of the youngest survivors of Auschwitz, Tova Friedman, following her childhood growing up during the Holocaust and surviving a string of near-death experiences in a Jewish ghetto, a Nazi labor camp, and Auschwitz.
-
-
Very interesting and well told
- By Tracy F. on 03-31-23
By: Tova Friedman, and others
-
The Dressmakers of Auschwitz
- The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive
- By: Lucy Adlington
- Narrated by: Lucy Adlington
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the height of the Holocaust, 25 young inmates of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp - mainly Jewish women and girls - were selected to design, cut, and sew beautiful fashions for elite Nazi women in a dedicated salon. It was work that they hoped would spare them from the gas chambers. This fashion workshop - called the Upper Tailoring Studio - was established by Hedwig Höss, the camp commandant’s wife, and patronized by the wives of SS guards and officers.
-
-
Not what I expected given description and preview
- By Kaeli Mathes on 09-24-21
By: Lucy Adlington
-
Into the Forest
- A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love
- By: Rebecca Frankel
- Narrated by: Natalie Pela
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1942, the Rabinowitz family narrowly escaped the Nazi ghetto in their Polish town by fleeing to the forbidding Bialowieza Forest. They miraculously survived two years in the woods—through brutal winters, Typhus outbreaks, and merciless Nazi raids—until they were liberated by the Red Army in 1944. After the war, they trekked across the Alps into Italy, where they settled as refugees before eventually immigrating to the United States.
-
-
Great story with an added benefit
- By Scottsville Stu on 12-30-21
By: Rebecca Frankel
-
The Note Through the Wire
- The Incredible True Story of a Prisoner of War and a Resistance Heroine
- By: Doug Gold
- Narrated by: Conrad Coleby
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the heart of Nazi-occupied Europe, two people meet fleetingly in a chance encounter. One an underground resistance fighter, a bold young woman determined to vanquish the enemy occupiers; the other a prisoner of war, a man longing to escape the confines of the camp so he can battle again. A crumpled note passes between these two strangers, slipped through the wire of the compound, and sets them on a course that will change their lives forever.
-
-
Power of love and anguish
- By CL on 04-05-25
By: Doug Gold
-
Band of Brothers
- E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne, from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest
- By: Stephen E. Ambrose
- Narrated by: Tim Jerome
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Easy Company, 506th Airborne Division, U.S. Army, was as good a rifle company as any in the world. From their rigorous training in Georgia in 1942 to D-Day and victory, Ambrose tells the story of this remarkable company, which kept getting the tough assignments. Easy Company was responsible for everything from parachuting into France early D-Day morning to the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden. Band of Brothers is the account of the men of this remarkable unit.
-
-
High Expectations Met
- By Audrey on 02-12-13
-
Still Alive
- A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered
- By: Ruth Kluger, Lore Segal - foreword
- Narrated by: Natasha Soudek
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Swept up as a child in the events of Nazi-era Europe, Ruth Kluger saw her family's comfortable Vienna existence systematically undermined and destroyed. By age 11, she had been deported, along with her mother, to Theresienstadt, the first in a series of concentration camps that would become the setting for her precarious childhood. Interwoven with blunt, unsparing observations of childhood and nuanced reflections of an adult who has spent a lifetime thinking about the Holocaust, Still Alive rejects all easy assumptions about history, both political and personal.
-
-
Extraordinary story. Sublime narration
- By Annie Armstrong on 11-16-21
By: Ruth Kluger, and others
-
The Daughter of Auschwitz
- My Story of Resilience, Survival and Hope
- By: Tova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A powerful memoir by one of the youngest survivors of Auschwitz, Tova Friedman, following her childhood growing up during the Holocaust and surviving a string of near-death experiences in a Jewish ghetto, a Nazi labor camp, and Auschwitz.
-
-
Very interesting and well told
- By Tracy F. on 03-31-23
By: Tova Friedman, and others
-
The Dressmakers of Auschwitz
- The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive
- By: Lucy Adlington
- Narrated by: Lucy Adlington
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the height of the Holocaust, 25 young inmates of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp - mainly Jewish women and girls - were selected to design, cut, and sew beautiful fashions for elite Nazi women in a dedicated salon. It was work that they hoped would spare them from the gas chambers. This fashion workshop - called the Upper Tailoring Studio - was established by Hedwig Höss, the camp commandant’s wife, and patronized by the wives of SS guards and officers.
-
-
Not what I expected given description and preview
- By Kaeli Mathes on 09-24-21
By: Lucy Adlington
-
Into the Forest
- A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love
- By: Rebecca Frankel
- Narrated by: Natalie Pela
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1942, the Rabinowitz family narrowly escaped the Nazi ghetto in their Polish town by fleeing to the forbidding Bialowieza Forest. They miraculously survived two years in the woods—through brutal winters, Typhus outbreaks, and merciless Nazi raids—until they were liberated by the Red Army in 1944. After the war, they trekked across the Alps into Italy, where they settled as refugees before eventually immigrating to the United States.
-
-
Great story with an added benefit
- By Scottsville Stu on 12-30-21
By: Rebecca Frankel
-
The Note Through the Wire
- The Incredible True Story of a Prisoner of War and a Resistance Heroine
- By: Doug Gold
- Narrated by: Conrad Coleby
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the heart of Nazi-occupied Europe, two people meet fleetingly in a chance encounter. One an underground resistance fighter, a bold young woman determined to vanquish the enemy occupiers; the other a prisoner of war, a man longing to escape the confines of the camp so he can battle again. A crumpled note passes between these two strangers, slipped through the wire of the compound, and sets them on a course that will change their lives forever.
-
-
Power of love and anguish
- By CL on 04-05-25
By: Doug Gold
-
Band of Brothers
- E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne, from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest
- By: Stephen E. Ambrose
- Narrated by: Tim Jerome
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Easy Company, 506th Airborne Division, U.S. Army, was as good a rifle company as any in the world. From their rigorous training in Georgia in 1942 to D-Day and victory, Ambrose tells the story of this remarkable company, which kept getting the tough assignments. Easy Company was responsible for everything from parachuting into France early D-Day morning to the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden. Band of Brothers is the account of the men of this remarkable unit.
-
-
High Expectations Met
- By Audrey on 02-12-13
-
Still Alive
- A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered
- By: Ruth Kluger, Lore Segal - foreword
- Narrated by: Natasha Soudek
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Swept up as a child in the events of Nazi-era Europe, Ruth Kluger saw her family's comfortable Vienna existence systematically undermined and destroyed. By age 11, she had been deported, along with her mother, to Theresienstadt, the first in a series of concentration camps that would become the setting for her precarious childhood. Interwoven with blunt, unsparing observations of childhood and nuanced reflections of an adult who has spent a lifetime thinking about the Holocaust, Still Alive rejects all easy assumptions about history, both political and personal.
-
-
Extraordinary story. Sublime narration
- By Annie Armstrong on 11-16-21
By: Ruth Kluger, and others
-
The Girl Who Escaped From Auschwitz:
- A totally gripping and absolutely heartbreaking World War 2 novel
- By: Ellie Midwood
- Narrated by: Alison Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nobody leaves Auschwitz alive. Mala, inmate 19880, understood that the moment she stepped off the cattle train into the depths of hell. Edward, inmate 531, is a camp veteran and a political prisoner. They are locked up for no other sin than simply existing. But when they meet, the dark shadow of Auschwitz is lit by a glimmer of hope. Edward makes Mala believe in the impossible. That despite being surrounded by electric wire, machine guns topping endless watchtowers and searchlights roaming the ground, they will leave this death camp.
-
-
Very sorrowful book
- By paula wright on 03-30-21
By: Ellie Midwood
-
Auschwitz #34207
- The Joe Rubinstein Story
- By: Nancy Sprowell Geise
- Narrated by: Richard Rieman
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seventy years ago, Joe Rubinstein walked out of a Nazi concentration camp. Until now, his story has been hidden from the world. Shortly before dawn on a frigid morning in Radom, Poland, 21-year-old Joe answered a knock at the door of the cottage he shared with his widowed mother and siblings. German soldiers forced him onto a crowded open-air truck. Wearing only an undershirt and shorts, Joe was left on the truck with no protection from the cold. By the next morning, several around him would be dead. From there, things got worse for young Joe, much worse.
-
-
A life changing read
- By mwatt on 03-26-16
-
On the Run in Nazi Berlin
- A Memoir
- By: Bert Lewyn, Bev Saltzman Lewyn - contributor
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Suzanne Toren
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Berlin, 1942. The Gestapo arrest 18-year-old Bert Lewyn and his parents, sending the latter to their deaths and Bert to work in a factory making guns for the Nazi war effort. Miraculously tipped off the morning the Gestapo round up all the Jews who work in the factories, Bert goes underground. He finds shelter sometimes with compassionate civilians, sometimes with people who find his skills useful and sometimes in the cellars of bombed-out buildings.
-
-
NOT YOUR USUAL STORY ABOUT THE NAZIS...FANTASTIC!
- By Steve on 03-21-19
By: Bert Lewyn, and others
-
I Escaped from Auschwitz
- The Shocking True Story of the World War II Hero Who Escaped the Nazis and Helped Save Over 200,000 Jews
- By: Rudolf Vrba, Alan Bestic, Sir Martin Gilbert - foreword, and others
- Narrated by: Steven Jay Cohen
- Length: 17 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
April 7, 1944 - This date marks the successful escape of two Slovak prisoners from one of the most heavily-guarded and notorious concentration camps of Nazi Germany. The escapees, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, fled over 100 miles to be the first to give the graphic and detailed descriptions of the atrocities of Auschwitz. Originally published in the early 1960s, I Escaped from Auschwitz is the striking autobiography of none other than Rudolf Vrba himself. Vrba details his life leading up to, during, and after his escape from his 21-month internment in Auschwitz.
-
-
Best story from the Holocaust I’ve ever read!
- By Chuck812 on 01-10-21
By: Rudolf Vrba, and others
-
The Nightingale
- By: Kristin Hannah
- Narrated by: Polly Stone
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France—a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime.
-
-
HEARTBREAKINGLY POIGNANT AND INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL
- By PatrioticMimi on 02-17-15
By: Kristin Hannah
-
Unbroken
- A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
- By: Laura Hillenbrand
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why we think it’s a great listen: Seabiscuit was a runaway success, and Hillenbrand’s done it again with another true-life account about beating unbelievable odds. On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared....
-
-
Indescribable
- By Janice on 12-01-10
-
The Nine
- The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany
- By: Gwen Strauss
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Nine follows the true story of the author’s great aunt Hélène Podliasky, who led a band of nine female resistance fighters as they escaped a German forced labor camp and made a 10-day journey across the front lines of World War II from Germany back to Paris. Drawing on incredible research, this powerful, heart-stopping narrative is a moving tribute to the power of humanity and friendship in the darkest of times.
-
-
Soooo good!
- By anne simpson on 09-28-21
By: Gwen Strauss
-
The Tattooist of Auschwitz
- A Novel
- By: Heather Morris
- Narrated by: Richard Armitage
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (German for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners. Imprisoned for more than two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism - but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive.
-
-
A hopeful perspective on a harrowing time
- By melyssa57 (A Page Before Bedtime dot com) on 10-10-18
By: Heather Morris
-
American Dirt
- A Novel
- By: Jeanine Cummins
- Narrated by: Yareli Arizmendi
- Length: 16 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lydia Quixano Pérez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier, the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city, is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.
-
-
Completely unrealistic
- By Marlene L Marquez on 02-12-20
By: Jeanine Cummins
-
Beneath a Scarlet Sky
- A Novel
- By: Mark Sullivan
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 17 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He's a normal Italian teenager - obsessed with music, food, and girls - but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior. In an attempt to protect him, Pino's parents force him to enlist as a German soldier - a move they think will keep him out of combat.
-
-
The Best Thing? It Really Happened!
- By Chip Atkinson on 08-07-17
By: Mark Sullivan
-
The Book of Lost Friends
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Wingate
- Narrated by: Sophie Amoss, Sullivan Jones, Robin Miles, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the best-selling author of Before We Were Yours comes a dramatic historical novel of three young women searching for family amid the destruction of the post-Civil War South, and of a modern-day teacher who learns of their story and its vital connection to her students’ lives.
-
-
I want more!!!
- By Mrstlg on 04-11-20
By: Lisa Wingate
-
Sunflower Sisters
- A Novel
- By: Martha Hall Kelly
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld, Shayna Small, Jenna Lamia, and others
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Georgeanna “Georgey” Woolsey isn’t meant for the world of lavish parties and the demure attitudes of women of her stature. So when war ignites the nation, Georgey follows her passion for nursing during a time when doctors considered women on the battlefront a bother. In proving them wrong, she and her sister Eliza venture from New York to Washington, DC, to Gettysburg and witness the unparalleled horrors of slavery as they become involved in the war effort.
-
-
It is a hard book to "listen" to.
- By Anna on 04-09-21
Critic reviews
"An adventure almost novelesque in the extraordinary succession of miracles which enable the young man to remain among the living" (Claude Lanzmann, producer of Shoah)
What listeners say about I Shall Live
Highly rated for:
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mary Ellen Oloughlin
- 11-26-15
exceptional.
Shared in startling detail with a frank honesty that captured my attention. Unable to set it aside until I finished every word.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cyndi & David Blake
- 09-24-23
Love the memoir
A good holocaust memoir filled with tragedy. It’s read by the survivor but he’s not a good story teller. Lacks flow, very choppy in parts, can hear pages turning… and makes it hard to stay into this book. I understand him wanting to read his own story but it would be much easier to listen with another narrator.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Benjamin
- 03-21-15
EXCEPTIONAL
Wonderful and God Bless. My whole amcestry is from Poland. You are an inspiration with which no words could describe.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- garie
- 03-01-19
Spellbinding
I've seen hundreds of documentaries on the Holocaust, but for the first time I can get a feel of what it actually was.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Stacey Trbovich
- 06-21-16
Inspiring
Honestly unbelievable story of resilience, faith and determination. Amazing man and amazing journey! Highly recommend!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- BARB ROZANSKI
- 07-13-17
Review
The story was sad as you can expect.
However, I have listened to a LOT of audio books and I found this one hard to get thru. I do understand this was Mr Orensteins story to tell, but you did by writing it. But a professional reader should have done the reading. My parents were in labor camps in Germany so my heart goes out to Mr Orenstein and his family. What you went thru was horrible, in fact there is no word to describe it properly. GOD bless you Sir.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michael
- 10-01-15
Learned a lot
There are a lot of people who are saying the author should have had someone else read his book. I think that's very rude and disrespectful. Everyone has a right to there own opinion but this is serious heartbreaking personal stuff here. I was glad he read it.I'm sure it took a toll on him bringing up all that horror. I'm sure it wasn't easy for him. The things he saw. The way he was treated. I think it took a lot of courage. This was the first holocaust the book I read. So it was very disturbing. But at the same time it's amazing to me just how the littlest thing could save or end your life. He really tells what it was like before the nazis. He explains a lot of things I did not know. If you are going to chose a book on the horrors of ww2 I recommend this one. I was also impressed at how he was able to read or think of other things for a distraction During the hiding and all. I would be pulling my hair out
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- carlie
- 03-11-16
Stunning
In many reviews I read that people would have wished he had not been the narrator for his own book. I disagree. I think it made the book more emotional to come from the mouth of the man that endured so many tribulations. Great book. Read it!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Linda D. Hester
- 02-17-23
Absolutely mesmerizing
This is one of the hundreds of books or documentaries I have read or watched.
I couldn’t stop listening. The author and narrator were the same. I thought his voice made the story real. I was so happy he and his brothers survived and he was able to come to the US and lead a wonderful, fulfilling life.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- valia
- 03-29-15
Fascinating
A heart breaking story
I am sure I lost many family members as well. He tells the story in a breath taking manner!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful