Letters to Sala: A Young Woman's Life in Nazi Labor Camps

by Ann Kirschner, Deborah Dwork, Robert Jan Van Pelt

In October 1940, Sala Garncarz was sixteen, the daughter of a rabbi and teacher and the youngest of eleven children in a poor family living in Sosnowiec, Poland, close to the German border. When her older sister Raizel was ordered to report to a Nazi forced labor camp, Sala volunteered to take her place. Neither she nor her family suspected that six weeks of required labor would stretch to almost five years of slavery. Through letters from family and friends that she managed to hide and keep safe, Letters to Sala tells the story of one young woman's experiences in the most inhumane and unimaginable of situations. An essay by historians Debórah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt provides background about the web of Nazi labor camps in occupied Europe, a less-documented and less-familiar aspect of the Holocaust. The illustrations in this volume are drawn primarily from the remarkable collection of more than 300 letters and other documents donated by the Kirschner family to the Dorot Jewish Division of The New York Public Library's Humanities and Social Sciences Library in April 2005. Letters to Sala is the companion volume for the exhibition on view from March 7, 2006-June 17, 2006.

Genres: Holocaust, Nonfiction, History, World War II, Biography, Memoir, Historical

Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Chrissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a memoir based on more than 350letters, photos and a diary kept by Sala Kirschner. Jewish and from a deeply religious family, she spent five years working in seven different labor camps. She was lucky to have survived the Holocaust, yes, but those years were filled with hunger, fatigue, illness, great sorrow…. and a strong will to live. Her children knew she had been born in Poland and that she arrived as a war bride in 1945, but she would not speak of her past. For nearly fifty years she had refused to speak of it, but then in 1991, before undergoing heart surgery, she gave her daughter what she had hidden for so many years and finally she talked. Anna Kirschner, Sala’s daughter, has recorded her mother’s Holocaust experiences. Sala was only sixteen when she departed alone on a train to Geppersdorf, Germany, the first of seven labor camps. She thought she would be there for only six weeks, but five years later she was still in a labor camp and only two of her sisters remained alive. The rest of her extended family numbering fifty were all dead.

The family was poor and thus were not able to pay a “head tax”. Sala’s sister, Raizel, was to be deported, but Sala went instead. The family agreed - Raizel could not go. She was pious and scholarly, always with her head in a book. Raizel was not the one for a job involving physical labor! Sala was strong-willed and strong physically. She was searching for adventure and freedom….and so she went instead.

Sala managed to save letters, numerous letters, the majority of which are from Raizel. It is of course wonderful that the letters were saved; that she managed to save them is in it-self amazing. However, too many are included, word for word, in the pages of this book. They are repetitious. They are also summarized in the conjoining text. This means that everything is said twice. Indeed, many have very little content. Sala’s letters were censored, and Raizel is hesitant to tell of the family’s real problems. Neither wants to upset the other....... I am not impressed with the structure of the book. The letters could have been included in an appendix at the end of the book.

What I do like are the historical facts, particularly about how the labor camps were set up in Eastern Upper Silesia. During the war this area was in Germany. The border here between Germany and Poland has changed several times. It was an important as a center for the coal mining industry, and thus of importance to the war effort. The final aim was to kill the Jews, but there was work to be done and someone had to do it. Wasn’t it better to employ the Jews? The Aryan Germans were away fighting. German enterprise turned to Albrecht Schmelt for labor, and he turned to Moses Merin for the necessary workers - Jews. Schmelt was chosen by Heinrich Himmler to be Special Representative of the “Reichsführer SS for the Employment of Foreign Labor in Upper Silesia.” He set up Organization Schmelt, a labor camp system with headquarters in Sosnowiec. One of the first such camps to be set up was that in Geppersdorf, to which Sala was first deported on October 28, 1940. Schmelt needed to work with someone within the Jewish Community, and that someone was Merin, head of the Judenrat in Sosnowiec. Later he became chief of all the Jewish Council of Elders in Eastern Upper Silesia. He had control over more than 130.000 Jews. Merin was the Jewish face of Nazi policies. He reported regularly to Schmelt in Sosnowiec and to SS Obersturmführe Hans Dreier, chief of Jewish Affairs for the Gestapo in the nearby regional center of Katowice .Policies were set by Schmelt and Dreier. Merin implemented their instructions. The question is: did Merin save lives through these labor camps? Oskar Schindler’s factories were part of Organization Schmelt. The organization was dismantled in 1943. Anyway, how the labor camp system was established is clearly explained, and it is interesting.

I also appreciated that the book follows those that survived the war up to the present day. Although many died, some survived, and this inspires hope. Due to much of the book being based on letters, the horrors are not faced head on. They are only hinted at. This lessens the emotional impact of the book.

The book has an index, source notes, photos and a list of both Sala’s labor camps and the fate of each family member.

[Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this to be a fascinating book. Although I already knew a fair amount about the Holocaust, I did not know about the labor camps. I also was not aware of the amount of mail between those still at home and those in the camps. This book provides an understanding of the life of those who were not in hiding.

[Deanne Patterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am almost at a loss of words as I try to wrap my mind around what I just finished reading. The book is a nonfiction book. This book just shows how strong the will to survive is despite the circumstances presented. I really hope some of you will have a chance to read it by borrowing it from the library or another source.

[Teri · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful yet heartbreaking story. This is the biography of Sala Garncarz, a young Jewish woman from the Silesia region of Poland in the 1940s. The story is told by Sala's daughter who often asked her mother what her experience was like in Poland during World War II. Sala would refuse to discuss this time until she was much older and she knew that if she was going to tell her story to her family, it should be sooner than later.

The story is told through a series of letters that Sala wrote and received during the war, as well as through diary entries she made and kept. Sala was the youngest of the large Garncarz family. As the war began in Europe, each Jewish family in Sala's small town had to send a family member to work for "six weeks" in a Nazi-run labor camp. The dreaded letter came to the Garncarz family requiring Sala's sister Raizel to report for work. The only way out would be to pay up or bribe the officers, but the Garncarzs did not have the money. Raizel was the more frail and frantic daughter and Sala was a young, bright, and vivacious teen who stepped up to take Raizel's place. After all, it was only to be for six weeks. It was one of many lies the Nazis told. On the appointed day, Sala gathered her diary and a few postcards and was accompanied to the train station with her mother and some of her siblings. There she met Ala, a young woman who promised Sala's mother that she would look after the young girl as if she were her own.

What follows is the details of Sala's life in a series of labor camps. Many people know about the concentration camps, but few books have been written about the labor camps. These were the factories that the Nazis needed running to help provide provisions for the war. Most of the people in these labor camps fared far better than those sent to the death camps. Mail and parcels were mostly allowed in and out of the labor camps but were not to be kept. Sala risked her life to keep these letters hidden through several transfers and inspections. Over 300 letters survived. It is through this correspondence that we see into another aspect of Nazi rule and the atrocities that Jewish people faced during the war. This story is at times heartbreaking but it also shows the courage that many had to keep going in light of what was happening around them.

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I wanted a heroine, instead, I was discovering a real woman."

I first found this book while searching for a memoir to read for my Holocaust examined class. I'll admit I was not super thrilled to be reading a devastating and depressing real-life story of someone who lived through the holocaust. But as the book progressed, I found myself enjoying Sala's courage, kindness, and resilience. There were so many themes throughout the book that were upsetting to learn about, much less apply to real-life people. I never knew some of the complexities of the views of people during that time and the actions they took. In general, throughout my holocaust class, we have emphasized the idea that this particular period of time cannot be explained in simple terms. People were heroes, martyrs, victims, and bystanders. Sometimes people were all of those things. It's a hard concept to grasp but this book truly opened my eyes to how complex and nuanced this topic is. I will forever remember and acknowledge the holocaust and the victims that were taken, but especially the story of Sala Garncarz and her journey through Nazi rule.

[Paige · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone's prolly sick of me only reading 5 star books so I'm going to give this 4 stars simply because I felt the story dragged a tiiiiny bit. But I absolutely enjoyed this. So heartfelt and really helped me understand how horrifying the holocaust really was and how it damaged surviving families.

[Karin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of Ann's Mother, Sala, who went to a German labour camp in place of her older, but more frail, sister Raizel. She survived 5 or 6 different camps before being liberated in 1945. Sala managed to save all her wartime correspondance from her sisters and friends, hiding her bundle of letters at each new camp. After the war she emigrated to the USA as a war bride knowing very little English and made a home and family for herself and her husband, Sidney.

Sala made friends of both fellow- workers and even some Germans. She worked well and tried to make the best of an awful situation.

Another piece of the story of the Nazi regime, Sala's Gift shows the resilience as well as the humanity of the condemned Jewish Europeans.

The story is a 4 or 5. Ann's research fills in the gaps around the letters, giving a 6 year story of her mother's coming-of-age in a war-time setting. The only drawback i noticed, was that it was kind of slow going.

[Karla · Rating 4 out of 5]

A remarkable book. The pedigree chart at the end was jolting. I'm used to seeing pedigree charts that get larger and larger with each younger generation in the family. To watch one shrink like that really drove home the impact of the Holocaust in a very visceral way to me.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

This non-fiction book recounts the author's mother's experience during the Holocaust. It was really interesting, and I learned a lot.

[annapi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to read this book because my daughter in her sophomore year of high school had the lead role of young Sala in "Letters to Sala", a play adapted from this book and published in 2013. It was her first meaty role and she memorized many many pages of the script.

This book brings to life the young Sala Garncarz, who took her older sister Raizel's place when Raizel was conscripted to work at a Polish labor camp. Raizel was frail and scholarly, totally unsuitable to hard labor, while Sala was strong and adventurous and itching for freedom. Through the letters that Sala miraculously was able to hide and save throughout the five years of being transferred from one labor camp to another, seven of them in total during the Holocaust, her story was preserved, brought to light only in Sala's later years when she finally gifted the collection to her grown daughter Ann. It is a valuable record of life in the labor camps, where Jews were kept for slave labor to build railroads and highways, produce ammunition and other material for the war effort, and serve Nazi officers.

I found this a surprisingly easy read, not at all dry or boring. The characters of Sala's sisters and friends come to life in their letters and in Ann Kirschner's prose as she pieced together the story not just from the letters but from interviews with the surviving people she tracked down. Well worth the time to read it!

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a gift in more ways than one. From a historical perspective, it gives us insight into life in Nazi labor camps. We know the sad stories of Auschwitz and Dachau, but there were other camps whose stories are less often told and remain unknown. Sala was in those camps, and she kept (with great difficulty and in much danger) what amounts to a written historical record of her time in those camps. This book is based on a cache of letters, photos, postcards, birthday cards, etc. that young Sala was able to hold onto as she was transferred through various Nazi work camps--through multiple inspections--even though their discovery could have meant not only that the letters would be destroyed but also that she may be.

Not only does the book provide us with the written record, but it also provides us with an oral history--recorded by the author, Ann Kirschner. She intertwines this oral history, which she has constructed from conversations with her mother and interviews with relatives and friends who survived the Holocaust, with the letters and with historical research to provide a comprehensive yet personal and emotionally-charged look at life for Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland's Organization Schmelt.

Never is history more interesting or more honest than when it is told by the people who lived it. And this book gives us faces, lives, to pair with the stories of the Holocaust--in a way that is vastly different (and dare I say somehow more real) from the Holcaust canon works with which we've all become familiar, like The Diary of Ann Frank. Sala is perhas more real in that through much of what is going on she, her sisters, her friends seem not to fully comprehend what's happening to them. They seem at times oblivious to the War going on outside the world of the camps...and yet they suffer no less as they rely on family, friends, and faith to survive in a world that is trying to strip them of all three.

4.75 out of 5 stars

[Autumn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful memoir of Sala's life during World War II as told by her daughter, Ann.

Ann knew little about her mother's life during the war beyond the fact that she was from Poland and had served in a Nazi labor camp. Her mother would not volunteer any other information beyond that. Then one day, just before Sala went in for heart surgery, she gave her daughter a box full of letters from her life in not just one, but seven labor camps within five years, and told her daughter, "What do you want to know?" From her mother's stories, letters, and Ann's own research, Ann discovers her mother and a family she never knew. A wonderful memoir that reveals a side of World War II not often known. Through the well-written narrative, the reader relates to Sala and her relatives, and while there is sorrow, there is a wonderful example of strength and determination and kindness among the characters in Sala's life. It was interesting to read how complicated some of the relationships were among German people and the Jewish population. Decency was alive in many.

One message in this book is the importance of letters and genuine communication to those we love. In Sala's case, as with everyone she served with, letters and photographs were life-lines to loved ones and her home, items they often risked their lives to keep safe. The idea that letters keep your loved ones close to you and alive is a powerful and inspiring one. One of the great strengths of the book is Ann's inclusion of some of Sala's sister's actual letters, as well as photographs she received and kept all these years.

Another message is the importance of learning your family's history, how their history teaches you not only who they were and what events influenced who they became, but also how knowing your family's history helps you understand who you are as one of their progenitors. Lovely, inspirational story.

[Karyl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very unique in the genre of Holocaust stories. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first book I have read, out of many Holocaust narratives, to include letters written to the inmate of a camp during these terrible years. Most Holocaust narratives rely on the survivors' and family members' memories, as what few letters that got through were usually confiscated. At times, in order to receive the most recent letter, an inmate would have to surrender the last letter he or she received. For Sala to have kept over 350 letters, documents, and photographs is nothing short of a miracle.

Sala's daughter Ann has taken this treasure of letters and woven them together into a compelling narrative. Admittedly, the story can be slow at times, but I admit it was very refreshing to read a Holocaust narrative by someone who managed to escape the worst of the Nazi-perpetrated horrors. It does make me wonder if that is why Sala chose not to speak of her experiences during WWII once she arrived in America just after the war. Did she feel guilty for not having to endure Auschwitz, like her two elder sisters did? Did she feel her story was somehow not worth telling, as she spent six years in labor camps instead of being trucked off to a death camp to face the gas chambers? But it is an important narrative to be told, regardless. Yes, Sala was lucky to have escaped the worst horrors, but she was still deprived of her family, of having enough food, of being warm and clean and dry, simply because due to her religion.

The genealogy section at the end of the book is quite jarring. Usually when they're presented to us, we see how families grow and expand. Instead, there is line after line in Sala's chart reading simply: "Entire family killed." Her family has shrunk over the years, not grown. It's quite sobering.

[Betsy Wachter · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author's mother had always kept her WWII experiences to herself. However, when she faced heart surgery, she gave to her daughter letters and photos that detailed her time spent in labor camps and her struggles to find the remains of her family after the war. The author adds her research to these documents and creates a moving story that adds significantly to the body of Holocaust memoirs. Inspirational.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a great read. It is a true story about a jewish girl who, while still in her teenage years back in 1941, was put into a jewish labor camp during WWII. She was later transferred to a concentration camp where she stayed until 1945, when it was liberated. This book is written through the letters she received from her family and friends while in the labor camp. This is a powerful book about the Holocaust.

[Eva-Marie Nevarez · Rating 5 out of 5]

very good book...I liked the writing, how it didn't bore me after I was about half way in. Told enough (but not too much) about secondary characters to keep me wondering what happened next tot hem also, tells about her love life (if you can call what she was allowed to have a love life) and overall I was impressed with the book.

[Nanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very good book. The author is Sala's daughter and she weaves a riveting tale culled from her mother's memories and correspondence from her 6 years in a Nazi labor camp. The history of the labor camps was very interesting and is not very well known.

[Susan Ferguson Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very amazing story of a woman's survival through 5 years of labor camps during Nazi Germany accompanied by letters from her family and friends which she managed to save during this entire time at great risk to herself. Quite sad to be reminded of mankind's inhumanity to man.

[Judy King · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author wrote this book as a biography of her mother, a survivor of the Nazi Labor camps in WWII. Told through the letters and postcards Sala saved at great risk to herself, she draws a touching picture of a young woman struggling to survive.

[Nichol · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazingly touching story about the Holocaust that is truly heartbreaking. Written by her daughter, this is a real-life story of a woman who worked in the Nazi slave labor camps during WWII and survived, but kept her previous life a secret for 50 years.

[Carole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a few things I didn't know. (not a big surprise). I won't mention but it shocked me because they did not follow my perception of the camps.

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't even imagine the horror of living through the Holocasut. This book made me feel as though I was living through this with Sala.

[Lynette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a remarkable book. A story that will have an effect on you long after you read it. It provdes a deeper understanding of young Jewish women and their struggle to survive the Holocaust.

[Marcie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My sister recommended this book to me (thanks Lis). It made me think about how important our relationships are, regardless of the circumstances of our lives. I really loved this book.

[Hollyjewell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book, but the subject matter is harsh (Nazi work camps and the victims of genocide/ethinc cleasing). But very insprirational.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very well-written book! I am a history buff and even though alot of the Holocaust is awful, this was based on a true story, which made it even more powerful.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another very good book about WWII.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truly inspiring to read this amazing woman's story of how she survived and overcame the horrific times in a Nazi work camp during WWII.

[Adri Dosi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Salin dar jsem sehnala v antikvariátu a byl to jen pokus. Kniha, která mne minula a já si jí všimla. Má pěknou impregnovanou obálku a celkově se graficky povedla. Jde o biografii a tak nehodnotím prožitky, ale tak nějak celek. Nepsala to matka, která to prožila, ale její dcera. Ta pomocí sesbíraných dopisů se rozhodla vytvořit příběh. Jenže Američanka a kniha vyšla v Americe, proto tak vysoké hodnocení. Sice si tedy našla poměrně dost různých zdrojů, ale je tam dost základních nedostatků... koncentráky označuje za pracovní tábory nebo i vyhlazovací tábory. Židé nechodili na nucené práce, když neměli práci a neposílali jim pozvánky na práci.. ani jen tak volně se nepohybovali.. velmi brzy končili v ghettech a koncentrácích. Tam ano, byli posíláni do vyhlazovacích táborů, které byli nejen u Žacléře... to je ta oblast pod Vratislaví, kde to je prokopáno a jsou tam podzemní fabriky. A neměla by se pohoršovat, že v Česku byly.. a že my jsme v něčem měli prsty... vzhledem k tomu, že to byli sudety, které v roce 1938 zabavil Hitler a šoupnul to k Německu... tam prostě nebyla pochopena ta původní historie a mapy před rokem 1938... tyhle pojmy to všechno zavádí jinam... Ty dopisy vyobrazují to, co řešili, jak to postupně vnímali, jak se jejich klid měnil.. jak to pochopení a hlad dělal děsné věci. Jen prostě to, že v Americe nemají představu a protože to, z čeho se snažila čerpat, bylo v různých jazycích a dokonce i ty dopisy... vzniklo dost překroucené dílo. Které mělo být vzpomínkou na pohnutý život matky, ale bylo to bohužel pokroucené. Takže za mne bohužel ne.

[annapi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to read this book because my daughter in her sophomore year of high school had the lead role of young Sala in "Letters to Sala", a play adapted from this book and published in 2013. It was her first meaty role and she memorized many many pages of the script.

This book brings to life the young Sala Garncarz, who took her older sister Raizel's place when Raizel was conscripted to work at a Polish labor camp. Raizel was frail and scholarly, totally unsuitable to hard labor, while Sala was strong and adventurous and itching for freedom. Through the letters that Sala miraculously was able to hide and save throughout the five years of being transferred from one labor camp to another, seven of them in total during the Holocaust, her story was preserved, brought to light only in Sala's later years when she finally gifted the collection to her grown daughter Ann. It is a valuable record of life in the labor camps, where Jews were kept for slave labor to build railroads and highways, produce ammunition and other material for the war effort, and serve Nazi officers.

I found this a surprisingly easy read, not at all dry or boring. The characters of Sala's sisters and friends come to life in their letters and in Ann Kirschner's prose as she pieced together the story not just from the letters but from interviews with the surviving people she tracked down. Well worth the time to read it!