Get Your Free Audiobook

Prime logo New to Audible Prime Member exclusive:
2 credits with free trial
1 credit a month to use on any title to download and keep
Listen to anything from the Plus Catalogue—thousands of Audible Originals, podcasts and audiobooks
Download titles to your library and listen offline
₹199 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.
Bending Toward the Sun cover art

Bending Toward the Sun

Written by: Leslie Gilbert-Lurie, Rita Lurie
Narrated by: Leslie Gilbert-Lurie, Beata Pozniak
Free with 30-day trial

₹199 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for ₹563.00

Buy Now for ₹563.00

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice.

Publisher's Summary

A miraculous lesson in courage and recovery, Bending Toward the Sun tells the story of a unique family bond forged in the wake of brutal terror.

Weaving together the voices of three generations of women - Rita, her daughter, Leslie, and her granddaughter, Mikaela - the memoir provides powerful and inspiring evidence of the resilience of the human spirit, relevant to every culture in every corner of the world. Unimaginably devastating and incredibly uplifting, this firsthand account of survival and healing offers a poignant message of hope in our own uncertain times.

Rita Lurie was five years old when she fled her home in Poland to hide from the Nazis. From the summer of 1942 to 1944, she and 14 members of her family shared a nearly silent existence in a cramped, dark attic, subsisting on scraps of food. Young Rita watched helplessly as her young brother and then her mother died by her side. Motherless and stateless, Rita and her surviving family spent the next five years wandering throughout Europe, waiting for a country to accept them.

Decades later, Rita is the matriarch of a close-knit family in California. Yet in addition to love, Rita unknowingly passes to her children feelings of fear, apprehension, and guilt. Her daughter Leslie, an accomplished lawyer, media executive, and philanthropist began probing her mother's childhood to discover how Rita's pain has affected not only Leslie's life and outlook but also that of her children. Their collaboration produced this unforgettable story, which reveals how deeply the Holocaust remains in the hearts and minds of survivors and their descendants.

©2009 Leslie Gilbert-Lurie (P)2021 Leslie Gilbert-Lurie
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

Critic Reviews

“The lasting impact of the Holocaust on a survivor and her daughter emerges in this joint account… The voices and experiences expressed are valuable.” (Publishers Weekly)

“[An] affecting memoir…. Vivid…. Riveting…. An amazing story of wartime survival.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“A captivating memoir that explores a complicated, loving, and enduring mother-daughter bond, and reveals how doubts, hopes, and dreams are handed down from generation to generation. As both a mother and a daughter, I found it deeply touching.” (Arianna Huffington, author, syndicated columnist, and founder of The Huffington Post

What listeners say about Bending Toward the Sun

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.