Customer Reviews

Sala's Gift: My Mother's Holocaust Story

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
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I grew up in NY City in the 50's, and was taught about the Holocaust at a very early age - a sobering education for a child just beginning to understand the world into which I was born. A few of my neighbors had survived the concentration camps (including one beautiful sweet young lady -- my heart went out to her), but not much was said about it.

Sala's Gift, with its detailed narrative opened my eyes even more than I expected, and adds so much more to the human aspect of the holocaust experience. Anne Kirschner, with her meticulous research, her stellar narrative and her deep love for her mother Sala and her mother's journey, brings us into Sala's home, her youth, lets us meet her family, mingle with her friends - we celebrate the Sabbath with the Garncarz family, we admire their sparse home filled with love, if not always with the daily necessities of life. How loving they were -- how brave they were, even in the most peaceful of times!!

Although the brutality of the concentration camps was not dwelled upon, the human fortitude and camaraderie forged from suffering and deprivation certainly was. How amazing to read about Sala and her camp friends, who looked after one another and made the best of a terrible situation -- the "birthday cake" of layered pieces of bare-subsistence bread being one example. This network of friends, acquaintances and even the friendship of some of the camp commanders were harbors in the storm for Sala, and her camp friends as well. As goes the song (based on an inscription found shortly after the Holocaust) "I believe in Hope, even though I do not see it" and the oft-sung (after 9/11): "Within the darkest night, you kindle the fire that never dies away", Hope was kept alive, by letter, by word, by a friendly gesture even in the meanest of places.

Ala's love, devotion and dedication to Sala's well being -- sparked by a chance meeting at the railroad station as Sala is about to take leave of her grieving mother -- is a glue that binds souls together and endures, even after separation. What perhaps might have happened had not those two souls met?? Sometimes we meet up with angels, who bless and ennoble our lives at a time when their presence is most needed, even thought these angels sometimes turn out to be all too human.

The reader is made to feel so much a part of this human condition, and I, like Ann Kirschner, exclaimed loudly and sadly when I read about Ala's tragedy -- and also rejoiced when Sala showed so much spunk and initiative, not only throughout her ordeal, but after her liberation, traveling to so many cities, centering and discovering herself and making her own life, after having been through so much hell.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough -- it should be required reading as should some of the references listed in the book's "source notes".

Highly Recommended! What is it like to be a teenager and be sent to a Nazi labor camp away from home? How is it like for the family left behind? The combination of a fluid narrative and beautiful autentic letters makes for a powerful reading experience like no other book.My heart went for sala and her family. Her grace while enduring the darkest of human experiences is truly captivating. Would you believe that the picture of beautiful Sala on the cover was taken during a three day vacation from labor camp spent with her family and friends in Sosnowiec?a slave on a three day break? All I see in her face is love light and beauty there is no hatred depression or darkness. The love of her family,truth and the hope for the future. Having your children born in a free land and bringing the story and the letters to light. Thank you Sala:you gave us a hugh gift and thank you Ann, second generation of love and light.

Richly detailed and meticuously researched, this moving account of the labor camps of the Holocaust is also a well-written and memorable read. I found myself engaged from the opening sentence, and as soon as I had reached the final page, I went right back to the beginning in order to "re-view" the characters from the point of their lives after the ordeal of the Holocaust. Thank you, Ann Kirschner, for this gift of a book.

This book is so outstanding. It is different than the average memoire by combining the story of a girl who sent to a Nazi labor camp(for only 6 weeks...turned into five years!)with the incredible collection of letters she was able to hide from the Nazi monsters.What will you get by reading the book?
1. A deep insight into the history of the Labor Camps.This part of the history of the holocaust has not been as highlighted as that of the concentration camps.
2. A very moving description of Sala's hard work while keeping her diginity and fighting to survive to reunite with her loved ones,and those who had written the letters.
3. A glimpse into this unbelievable collection of letters that survived against all odds.( the letters and other photos in the book are of superb quality)
4.A powerful inspiration;no need to read any other motivational books ever!
5.Daugher Mother relationship. I can only imagine how many years it took Ann to write this book.It was her gift to her mother:Ann's decision to write the book was free will. Sala's decision to go to labor camp also seemed to some extent to be free will;to spare her sister. The Nazis demanded slavery!

I hope that one day there will be a sequele to this book. How did it all impact Ann? her life and her children? What if there were no letters left? what if the decision was never to go back and visit the sites of the painful memories, especially Sosnowiec?

Thank you Sala and Ann for a true gift!

Having read Holocaust Survivor stories for many years, I was skeptical of there being anything new to add. Yet, Dr. Kirschner explores her mother's holocaust experience from an entirely new perspective and also the suffering of those who waited for Sala to return. This is an important collection, the letters being the most personal account to date.

This wonderful book focuses on an aspect of the Shoah not incredibly well-known, Organization Schmelt. This was an umbrella group of a network of labor camps in Poland and Germany, where the inmates were actually engaged in real work, treated and fed reasonably well in comparison to the slaves in the death camps (and thus stood a greater chance of not only survival but also being liberated in relatively good health), and, most importantly to this story, allowed to send and receive mail. Ms. Kirschner's mother hadn't spoken of her wartime experiences at all until 1991, when on the eve of heart surgery she suddenly presented her with a box full of old letters, postcards, greeting cards, and photographs, all of which she had carefully guarded and preserved throughout her ordeal in seven camps over five years. (She had actually gone to the first labor camp in place of her sister Raizel, whose selection they felt must have been some sort of bureaucratic fluke since she wasn't the type of person who would have fared very well in such an environment.) The teenage Sala's correspondence paints a vivid fascinating portrait of what life was like in those years, on so many levels--religious life in Poland, what it was like to be so poor you had to burn paper in the stove to pretend you were cooking food and thus avoid charity, the constant fear, sadness, and uncertainty, how life went on as best it could even in spite of everything, the hopes and fears of those she had left behind in Sosnowiec, the hopes and fears of Sala herself, the conditions in the Schmelt camps, her friendship with a German family she worked as a seamstress for until Geppersdorf got its own sewing machine, the friendships that sustained her, and what it was like after the liberation.

Woven throughout the letters is a historical narrative, providing more background and insight on outside events that wasn't really the focus of the letters. The letter-writers were focused on day to day survival, hopes, fears, dreams, and worries, not the larger historical picture. We also get a narrative about the family and friends Sala left behind in Sosnowiec, how they carried on from day to day, and the eventual deportation of most of the city's large Jewish community. In a family of 11 children (seven of whom were alive in 1939), only Sala and her sisters Blima and Raizel survived, and like many people lost in the nightmare of the Shoah, specifics of the deaths of most of their friends and relatives remain unknown. Another important component of this story is Sala's friendship with Ala Gertner, a somewhat older woman whom she met at the train station in Sosnowiec. I thought I recognised Ala in the picture on the back cover of this book, since it looked so much like what I had thought was the only known surviving picture of this amazing woman, and quickly found out that she was indeed one of the important figures in this powerful story. She took Sala under her wing and helped to sustain her in Geppersdorf, acting as both as dear friend and a mother figure, and after her release and return to her native city of Bedzin, she kept working to try to get Sala released as well. Ala was one of the 4 women hanged for their role in the Sonderkommando uprising at Auschwitz, and had been one of my sheroes for awhile, but after reading this book and getting to know a more personal side of her instead of just the historical facts about what she did, I have even more admiration for her. (I was also thrilled when I found out that the man she married in 1943, Bernhard Holtz, was 10 years her junior; even more reason for me to like and admire her!)

Instead of dwelling on the horror of the Shoah and the nightmare and indignity of the camps, this book gives a more personal view, focusing on things like friendships, filial love, faith, dreams about the future, and the hope of building a better tomorrow and starting all over again. It's such a miracle that this rare treasure-trove of correspondence was all able to survive and to tell this amazing unique story of survival.

Sala's Gift will nourish many future generations of readers, a rare combination of an important book and a great read. I fell in love with Sala, finished this beautifully-written book in one sitting, so caught up in the riveting story of Sala and the pulse of history that beats so strongly through her life.

Sala kept the secrets of her wartime experiences for nearly 50 years. Only when she feared she might not recover from surgery did she reveal to the existence of hundreds of letters that she had received during her years in Nazi slave labor camps - amazingly, mailed right into the camps. Her daughter was shocked, then obsessed, and began a long investigation that unlocked the secrets of the letters. The result is a fascinating book that is a memoir as well as a daughter's loving biography of her mother. The book includes brief selections from letters, and through the actual words of Sala's friends and family, we see the disintegration of individual lives in a dramatic and personal way. As the copious Source Notes demonstrate, there's a tremendous amount of research behind this book - new knowledge about the Nazi slave labor system -- but this is no textbook. It is history immersed in life.

I was reminded sometimes of Eleni, Nicholas Gage's remarkable biography of his mother, and of Maus, Art Spiegelman's retelling of his father's wartime experiences.

I was often moved to tears but ended the book with a tremendous sense of rebirth and the optimism that allowed Sala to rebuild her life in America.

The author's mother is a woman of courage at many levels. In the Nazi work camps it was forbidden to keep letters. Her defiance and courageous evasion of this rule has given us a rich history of life for the ordinary Polish Jew as arrests, deportations and deprivation grinds down the survivors. We are drawn into her family in an intimate and caring way.

The book is beautifully written. It flows through a story that could be disjointed or monotonous in the hands of a lesser writer. There is so much to learn about love and friendship. How a life is saved when a moment of luck and courage intersect. How new "family" is formed from the fractured remnants of old ones. When hope and succor come from surprising places. The ominous shadows that draw over friendships as the precious lifeline of correspondence with cherished ones grows silent one by one. The network of support and care as new friends build each other up. The courage and hope and the path to a new life after the horror.

I am grateful for Mrs. Kirschner's courage now to open such a tightly sealed vault of pain to us. On a return visit in the 90's she leaves the threshold of her old home in Poland and says "I am so much more now than when I left. " So are we, dear readers. Thank you, Mrs. Kirschner, for your gift to us.

After reading several books about the Holocaust, one begins to think they all reads the same, but for me this book was far different and gives a different perspective. The author is well educated and does an excellent job of detailing horrific events with little emotion, just sort of revealing and sliding over them. This particular story follows a young woman from the time she voluntarily left home as a teenager, at the behest of Jewish Leaders, to go to work at a labor camp and earn some money. At the time she left home, everyone thought she would be there only for maybe six weeks. No one knew it was a slave-labor camp, which later became a concentration camp.
There was a Jew who conspired with the Nazis to help get Jewish workers into these work camps without revealing that they would probably never leave them alive. As the war progressed and more and more workers were needed, Jewish settlements were decimated of population by the Germans taking anyone available to work. As time passed, the workers had little to eat, but neither did the ones at home, who were relying on Sala's wages to survive, but that was a ruse and no wages ever were paid. Sala, afraid and alone when entering the camp, immediately met an older Jewish woman, named Ala, who took her under her wing. Through the years Ala managed to be in favor with the Jew who reported to the Nazis about the activities and availability of Jewish laborers resident in the various surrounding villages. Ala climbed up the ladder as far as better living conditions, wages and influence and she continually protected Sala.
When Hitler issued the order that all Jews be exterminated is when conditions worsened. All Jews able to work at all were put in labor camps and all others were murdered. Sala was a fine seamstress and consequently was transferred to five different camps. She had several good girlfriends, but only two survived. Just before Germany lost, many woman died from exposure because of a long march in the winter without adequate clothing and then suffered from typhoid fever and other winter ailments. Sala spent months trying to find her two friends, but their health was so poor, the Allies sent them to Sweden for hospitalization. Eventually Sala did find them. Sala also met an American soldier who immediately fell in love with her, was transferred to the States but came back to Europe, found her and married her.
Sala lost most of her family, including Ala and the Jewish boss who were gassed,but never revealed to her daughter about her past until she was declining in health. Sala then brought out this small box in which she had kept letters, pictures, a diary, all of which would have caused her death if the Germans had found it. She always managed to hide it as she was transferred. It is from these mementos and Sala's memories that the author, Ann, was able to write this book.

All those letters kept and treasured gave us all a deeper understanding of the Holocaust. Thank you Sala for saving them and Ann for sharing them with all of us.