For nearly 50 years, Sala Kirschner kept a secret: she survived five years in Nazi work camps. In 1991, Sala showed her daughter Ann more than 350 letters and a diary that revealed the astonishing story of her odyssey as a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Includes letter facsimiles and 16 pages of photos.
"Ann Kirschner allows her mother's poignant story to emerge from these heartbreaking missives, filling in the gaps with a dignified, quietly eloquent connecting narrative...an incredible journey through hell and back" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

For nearly fifty years, Sala Kirschner 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 hidden 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, her daughter, and offer to answer any questions Ann wished to ask.

When Sala first reported to a camp in Geppersdorf, Germany, 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.

Sala's Gift is a heartbreaking, eye-opening story of survival and love amidst history's worst nightmare.