Letters to Sala A Must-See Exhibit in Jacksonville

Allow me to take a detour from my usual ramblings about wine to talk about something that has the potential to change our world. It's about an exhibit currently on display at the Main Jacksonville Public Library.

Are there any secrets in your family? There used to be plenty in the life of Sala Garncarz Kirshner.

It was in 1991 when Sala was told she had to have heart bypass surgery that she decided to come clean with her daughter, Ann Kirshner.

"After all, my sister had died from the surgey," Sala says on the documentary that is being produced by Murray Nossel, Ph.D.

This native of Poland, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1947, gave her daughter a box filled with some 350 letters, postcards, journal pages and photographs that would end up explaining a five-year gap in her life that she had never shared with her daughter and two sons.

Ann began going through the items in the box only to be blown away. She found letters written in Polish, Yiddish and German.

For, you see, Sala had been enslaved in a Nazi labor camp from the age of 16 to age 21 when Europe was liberated from the Nazis in World War II. In all, Sala spent these tender years in a total of seven labor camps not knowing where her mother and father were, much less if they were even still alive.

Enslaved Jews were required to learn and therefore write in German if they were to mail letters so the Nazi censors could read them and censor out any letters that were perceived as being negative or berating the Nazi war machine.

Ann later went on to publish the journey that unfolded with these letters and photos in the book titled "Sala's Gift."

It's a story of not only secrets, but of hope, tragedy, naiveté, love and risk. But, Sala's story is one of deep spirituality and how much faith she had that she would prevail over such a horrific period in our world history.

I was fortunate today to lead two tour groups through the "Letters to Sala" exhibit that opened Sunday, Mtoday at the Main Jacksonville Library. I volunteered to serve as a docent when asked by Vickie Kennedy whom I got to know through my PR work I do for Beth El Beaches Synagogue. When Vickie told me about this book and this body of work, I was floored.

In the exhibit, you not only get a chronology of what is going on with this horrific war, you get a sense of how much this young woman risked by keeping these letters and other personal items that had to be reviewed by the Nazi censors' muster. She once buried her letters in the dirt before the Nazi SS inspected her bunk. Other times, she would sneak them to another campmate who had already passed inspection. Either way, if she were caught hoarding the letters, she could've been killed.

Ann said by Sala keeping the letters and photos while imprisoned was her way of resisting the Nazi government and trying to keep some semblance of control over her life in such a trying time.

Sala was able to send and receive letters to her two sisters, Blima and Raziel, who were also imprisoned at other labor camps. Raziel, who takes on the nature of a mother-hen type, writes scolding letters to Sala for Sala not writing her enough while encouraging her to keep hope for the future.

One of the huge take-aways for me about this woman and her amazing tale is her ability to connect with people. One such person was another Jewish woman named Ala Gertner, who worked for the Judenrat or Jewish Council established by the Nazi government. How would you feel if your own people were forced to watch over you, police you, rat you out and tax you under the control of a tyrannical Nazi government? That's the gist of the Judenrat's role.

Ala befriended Sala and wrote her letters and even mailed her a photo of the two that is in the book and the exhibit. But, Ala was also keeping a secret. She was helping sneak out gunpowder from the Nazi munitions factory. This gunpowder was later used to build a bomb that helped explode and destroy a portion of the Nazi gas chambers.

Little did Sala know that Ala would fall victim to the Nazi tyranny and be put to death at Auschwitz in 1944 for her role in the uprising.

Others also kept secrets from Sala. Harry Haubenstock, who was also imprisoned in the Nazi labor camps, pledged to remain faithful to Sala and meet up in Prague after the war. As it turns out, Harry had made the same promise to a number of women in the labor camps. Instead of meeting Sala in Prague, he sends her a telegram telling her he is not going to meet her.

Harry's letters to Sala are sad, but hopeful even though he was not good at committing to one woman. In one card, he writes that he hopes she "have 120 years of freedom!" just like Moses lived to 120-years-old.

I could go on and on about this sadly beautiful story, but I won't. I implore each of you to go see this exhibit. Jacksonville should feel very honored to be the second city outside of New York to get this exhibit, which will be on permanent display here.

So, regardless of the secrets in our families, this exhibit should give us all hope for the world.