''Sala's Gift: My Mother's Holocaust Story'' is an account by

Ann Kirschner Ann Kirschner is an American entrepreneur, academic, and author of the books Sala's Gift: My Mother's Holocaust Story and ''Lady at the OK Corral: The True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp''. She previously served as the interim president of Hunter ...

of her mother Sala's experiences in the

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

, based primarily on a

collection of letters A letter collection consists of a publication, usually a book, containing a compilation of letters written by a real person. Unlike an epistolary novel, a letter collection belongs to non-fiction literature. As a publication, a letter collection ...

her mother gave her, that she had received while in

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

labor camps A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...

, written by about 80 correspondents. The most famous of the letter writers was Sala's friend Ala Gertner, who was

hanged Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...

Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...

for her role in the only armed uprising at the camp. The original letters and Sala's diary are held by the Dorot Jewish Division of the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...

, and were exhibited to public in 2006. The book was later adapted into a play by Arlene Hutton titled ''Letters to Sala''.Letters to Sala
Dramatists Play Service, Inc. The letters have also been the subject of a traveling exhibit. The letters at the NYPL are made available to students and scholars involved with productions of ''Letters to Sala'' The book was published by Simon and Schuster/Free Press in 2006, and has been translated into several languages: in German as ''Salas Geheiminis,'' Polish, as ''Listy z Pudełka,'' Italian, as ''Il Dono di Sala,'' French, as ''Le Secret de ma mère,'', and Chinese. It was reviewed by the ''New York Times'', and the first chapter was reprinted in that newspaper on Nov. 12, 2006

References

Personal accounts of the Holocaust Collections of letters {{Holocaust-memoir-stub