About the Book:

Few family secrets have the power both to transform lives and to fill in crucial gaps in world history. But then, few families have a mother and a daughter quite like Sala and Ann Kirschner. For nearly fifty years, Sala kept a secret: She had survived five years as a slave in seven different Nazi work camps. Living in America after the war, she kept from her children any hint of her epic, inhuman odyssey. She held on to more than 350 letters, photographs, and a diary without ever mentioning them. Only in 1991, on the eve of heart surgery, did she suddenly present them to Ann and offer to answer any questions her daughter wished to ask. It was a life-changing moment for her scholar, writer, and entrepreneur daughter.

We know surprisingly little about the vast network of Nazi labor camps, where imprisoned Jews built railroads and highways, churned out munitions and materiel, and otherwise supported the limitless needs of the Nazi war machine. This book gives us an insider’s account: Conditions were brutal. Death rates were high. As the war dragged on and the Nazis retreated, inmates were force-marched across hundreds of miles, or packed into cattle cars for grim journeys from one camp to another. When Sala first reported to a camp in Geppersdorf, Poland, at the age of sixteen, she thought it would be for six weeks. Five years later, she was still at a labor camp and only she and two of her sisters remained alive of an extended family of fifty. In the first years of the conflict, Sala was aided by her close friend Ala Gertner, who would later lead an uprising at Auschwitz and be executed just weeks before the liberation of that camp. Sala was also helped by other key friends. Yet above all, she survived thanks to the slender threads of support expressed in the letters of her friends and family. She kept them at great personal risk, and it is astonishing that she was able to receive as many as she did. With their heartwrenching expressions of longing, love, and hope, they offer a testament to the human spirit, an indomitable impulse even in the face of monstrosity.

Sala’s Gift is a rare book, a gift from Ann to her mother, and a great gift from both women to the world.

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

I have recently been told that I am obsessed with the Holocaust. This may, or may not be true. But I do know this — some of the most incredible stories are to be found within the era’s of great turmoil, and upheaval. When evil is given free reign in this life, the greatest moments of heroism, hope, and faith can then be found. This has always been my perception of the Holocaust. It isn’t the atrocity that I find so fascinating, but the hope I find for the human race, in the stories of the survivors, the heroes, and the people that most of society class as the victims.

One story that so beautifully portrays this message is in the book I just finished reading. Sala’s Gift is the story of a young girl, who volunteers to go to the work camp, in Poland, in the place of her sister. This is an unusual Holocaust story, in that Sala spent no time in the death camps, of the Nazi war machine. She spent all of her time in the work projects, mostly that worked on the German Autobahn. Her unique personality, and independence gave her the tools that were necessary to survive. And when her own strengths failed her, she would fall back on the letters that she received from her friends, and family, during the time she was interred.

There are certainly some heartbreaking moments found in this book, as letters from people she knew, and loved became fewer, and fewer, until they finally ceased to come all together. It wasn’t until the end of the war that Sala finally realized the magnitude of what those ominous silences meant — and the true extent of her losses became a reality.

But this is also a unique story of the love, and the strength of relationships and between family members, and friends — and what a critical role those relationships played, in the survival of those who managed to get through. The beauty of this story cannot be overshadowed by the horrors that were going on around Sala, in one of the darkest chapters of human history. And through the letters she went to great lengths to preserve, the voices of Sala, and those closest to her will never be silenced. They will outlive the horrible plan that the Nazi’s devised for them. Their lives will forever carry on in the memories of those that read their heritage — while the fates of the Nazi’s fade into the minutia of history.

This is a book that I can’t recommend enough. So much strength and goodness have survived through this story. It is an amazing book to read, and one that I would love to share with everyone.

Tags: Auschwitz, Concentration Camps, Holocaust, Nazi, Non-Fiction, Survivor, World War II

Category: Biography/Autobiography, History, Non-Fiction, World War II