Karen I. Treiger
After retiring from her law practice in 2015, Karen dedicated herself to researching and writing her family histories. After three years of work, Karen published her first book telling the harrowing story of her in-laws, Sam and Esther Goldberg’s experience during the Holocaust. The result of her three-year inquiry is the widely praised book, My Soul is Filled with Joy: A Holocaust Story (also available in Polish). In it, Treiger chronicles both Sam and Esther's journey, including Sam’s escape from the death camp Treblinka, as well as her family’s experiences in Poland when they retraced the path from Treblinka to the pit in the Polish forest where they hid until their liberation. As Treiger became invigorated and inspired by the people she encountered, Sam and Esther’s story became her story too.
She then turned to explore her own family’s history. A very different story – as much of the history was just outside her front door. These immigrants came to the United States before World War II, some as early as 1870-1880s. This exploration was inspired, in part, through the grief she felt after losing her father, Irwing Treiger in 2013.
The deep dive into the lives of these fascinating characters has been a journey of self- exploration. She is thrilled to bring this book, Standing on the Crack: The Legacy of Five Jewish Families in Seattle’s Vibrant Gilded Age to the world in August of 2025. Through this book, Treiger brings Seattle and her family members to life as she puts the story into historical context. She shares the growth of the city and its Jewish community through the lives of these five families.
Karen was born in Seattle and educated at Barnard College and New York University Law School --where she was editor-in-chief of NYU Law Review. She has been named to the Jewish Book Council Author’s Network, the Seattle Holocaust Center for Humanity Speaker’s Bureau, and served on the University of Washington Advisory Council for the Extension Writing Program. Her perspectives have been shared in the Forward, the Jewish Press, and the Washington State Pioneer Association Newsletter. Karen is the proud mother of four adult children and the Bubbi to five fantastic grandchildren.
She is happy to speak to audiences around the world, in person or via video hook-up.
Reviews and Tributes
“Karen Treiger’s My Soul is Filled With Joy presentation is so much more than an author talk: it is an amazing multimedia, multilayered, multi-generational interactive story of family, survival, love, and luck. A lawyer by training, Treiger’s passion for dogged research and vibrant storytelling enable her to not only cogently communicate how disparate lives intersected in the most harrowing of times but she also does justice to her in-laws’ fated and mind-boggling story. “When you marry someone,” she says, “you marry their family too. I married into a family of survivors.” Their intense stories of slavery to freedom came up annually around the Passover Seder table. Treiger, their daughter in-law, had the courage to stitch their far-off accounts and fabled anecdotes into an epic book. And her live presentation truly leaps off the page.”
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Pamela Lavitt, Director of Arts+Ideas and Festivals, Stroum Jewish Community Center
“During the Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków, Karen Treiger gave a captivating lecture on the brand new and expertly translated Polish edition of her book My Soul is Filled with Joy. Karen presented the remarkable survival story of her in-laws, Sam and Esther Goldberg, in German Occupied Poland, and her own family’s journey to Poland over a half-century later to meet the children of the righteous Poles who saved Sam and Esther during the Holocaust. Both accessible and erudite, Karen described Sam’s extraordinary escape from the infamous Death Camp, Treblinka, and Esther’s no less harrowing survival, with historical precision and sociological detail. Despite the serious and traumatic nature of the story, Karen also recounted moments of kindness, joy, and laughter in that period of hell. As the last survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust pass, Karen’s work is all the more urgent and necessary. It is an intergenerational history of preserving memory.”
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Jonathan Zisook, Fulbright Research Fellow, Faculty of History and the Institute of Jewish Studies, Jagiellonian University of Kraków
“Karen Treiger is a dynamic and poignant speaker. She has a remarkable story to share and is a gifted writer and presenter – we were honored to have her join us at Temple Beth Am for our Yom Hashoah commemoration.”
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Alexis Kort, Director of Community Engagement, Temple Beth Am, Seattle
Karen Treiger’s presentation to our Middle School was compelling, informative and touched the spirit of everyone present. No small task. Our teachers were impressed with Karen’s dexterity; connecting history with her book’s narrative, our students were captivated by her engaging and thoughtful presentation and everyone was taken with the unfolding story of Karen’s research and family experience. Of all our presenters at the Seattle Hebrew Academy – Karen is the only one whom students asked to return for further question and answers. Now that says a lot!
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Rivy Poupko Kletenik, Head of School of the Seattle Hebrew Academy.
“Karen Treiger spoke to 70 residents at Mirabella Seattle on Thursday, May 2, 2019 for an hour. She presented the story of her husband’s family who survived the horrors of occupation in Nazi controlled Poland. The lecture brought tears of joy to all attendees as she included her revisit to where here husband's parents hid in the woods. The people at Mirabella loved Karen's eloquent story and professional power point presentation. Mirabella only allows the most qualified speakers to speak and Karen is forever on our list of great speakers.”
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Leslie Klein, Chair of Programming Committee and Resident of Mirabella
“Karen Treiger’s account of her family’s Holocaust experience in Poland is riveting. My students sat on the edge of their seats, as she told the story of her father-in-law Sam’s escape from the Nazi death camp, Treblinka. Her mother-in-law Esther Goldberg’s story of evading death in the Polish forest is equally compelling. Karen’s presentation was a game-changer for the students in my Everett Community College Humanities course, Surviving the Holocaust. They were able to connect what they had hitherto only read about to real people who demonstrated tremendous courage and resilience to survive. Karen presentation makes this dark chapter in human history come alive. I look forward to reading her book, My Soul is Filled with Joy.”
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Dr. Charles Fischer, Instructor of English and Humanities and Director of the Humanities Alliance, Everett Community College
Although I read the book, I was newly inspired by Sam and Esther’s story and newly impressed by your ability to tell it. We find many times in Rabbinic writing the expression "אינה דומה שמיעה לראייה" - one cannot compare the clarity of perception that comes from hearing about something with the -- much greater -- clarity of conception that comes from actually witnessing it. After having read your book and now hearing your presentation, I would like to say that אינה דומה קריאה לשמיעה - one cannot compare the clarity of a story after having read it with the -- much greater -- clarity acquired after having heard you retell it!
Your in-laws and the people who helped save them were heroes and role models for their children and grandchildren for generations to come and you in your own way are heroic as well for capturing and documenting and publicizing their story as you have done (and as you are doing) for these past four years. May your children be inspired by your own heroism, idealism, and accomplishments just as you have inspired others by publicizing the heroism, idealism, and accomplishments of others.
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Rabbi David Twersky, Jerusalem, Israel
Awards and Recognitions
