The story of Polish Jews who were lucky enough not to be sent directly to the death camps, yet unlucky enough not to make it onto Schindler's list or find some other long-term refuge. Writing mostly about her mother's family as they lived for six years on the precipice, Kirschner produces something amazing: an important piece of scholarship that never feels like a historical tome. Rather, it stands on its own as a deeply moving, character-based story that will leave you wanting to revisit passages about remarkably brave and beautiful people -- some survivors, some not -- who were nearly forgotten by history. Despite Kirschner's proximity to the story, she never forces herself into the narrative; rather, she weaves personal elements into the story only when they can add a new and critical dimension. The result is a book that deserves to be dog-eared and passed around repeatedly.

Ann Kirschner meticulously weaves the story of her mother's survival with the overwhelming accounts of the Holocaust...a fine balance between biography and history lesson.

This is a very moving tribute written by a daughter about her mother. It is also well-researched and well-written, shedding new light on the movement of mail through work camps and even concentration camps. Sala's story of survival and redemption is remarkable, and the reader can well imagine the emotional roller-coaster the author must have experienced uncovering her mother's story.

I was so moved by this book I will include share my heartfelt comments to the author.
Just want to THANK YOU for such an amazing book! Your decision to share your mothers personal life with readers who benefit so from your investment of labor and emotion is generous and to be admired! When you were complete it must have looked like E=Mc squared did to Einstein! Simple on the surface with the complexity of the universes author within. My highest regards to you and Sala Kirschner.
Glenn from Tampa Fl and sometimes Lake Tahoe Nv

I picked this book, figuring it would be an interesting read. It is, hands down, one of the best books I have read regarding the Holocaust. What a wonderful book! Where other books have let me down, this book did not. It is a must read.

I read an article in the Ladies Home Journal and wanted to read more about this amazing woman. I bought the book and my mother and I have both just finished reading it. What an unforgettable story - and what a strong and courageous woman is Sala! Thank you, Ann, for bringing this to the rest of the world and for all the incredible extra research you have done to fill in the spaces. It is the story of a life that is much too important to be kept in a box. My husband will read this beautifully and lovingly written book next and I have recommended it to my book club. Thank you! Thank you!

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.

I am grateful that this loving daughter took the time and energy to compile this very moving and informative story. i felt tremendous compassion for both the mother and the daughter. A wonderful read!

Sala's Gift describes the life of the author's mother in the labor camps during the Holocaust. The world of the labor camps is something I knew nothing about. The book is fascinating and also incredibly moving while written beautifully and with remarkable restraint. Sala's story goes well beyond the cliche of a "survival against all odds" story although it is certainly that. The gift Sala gives is a story of love, family and integrity of the soul against the backdrop of the enormous cataclysm that was Europe in that period.

Filling in an important part of the story of Nazi concentrations camps, Sala's Gift chronicles the 5 years the author's mother, Sala,spent in various labor camps.
Ann Kirschner carefully reconstructs her mother's hitherto hidden past, through a cache of miraculously saved correspondence. She leaves it up to the imagination of the reader to fill in the more horrific details, of which we are all well aware. Instead, she weaves a rich emotional tale of a young woman's relationships and the thin thread that holds us all heart to heart.
A wonderful book.

Anyone interested in the Holocaust/WW II will get a first-hand look at what people went through. It's unbelievable and the world is lucky that these letters, photos and mementos were saved through such turbulent times. Sala's Gift really is a gift to the world and her daughter who wrote it did an amazing job.

I thought the book was very good. It was interesting to read all the letters that were written to Sala. It would have been nice if Sala had kept her red journal with her and wrote down what kinds of things were going on in the camps that she worked in, just to give a more insider look at life in the camps; to see her view. The book is excellent and does a good job of describing some of the aspects that occured during that time. When reading the book I was a bit surprised that they were even allowed to send and receive letters while in the camp. I was also surprised by the fact that some pictures were taken while Sala was in the camps and she got to keep them.

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.

Ann Kirschner has given the readers a gift; her mother's story. Sala's gift is a wonderful, probing , passionate look at a world that is mostly lost in the Holocaust genre. It is important to recognize that the labor camps existed and they were in many cases like Sala's, an opportunity to survive if you were lucky. An excellent thought provoking read, which will cause readers to pause and remember.