The 2006 Fall Presidential Lecture Series
Presenter(s): Dr. Ann Kirschner
Status: Available
Air Date: 12/6/2006
Air Time: 4:00 PM EST
Length: 1 Hour 6 Minutes 24 Seconds
Sala's Gift: My Mother's Holocaust Story.
For nearly fifty years, Sala Kirschner kept a secret. After surviving 5 years of Nazi work camps, she came to America as a war bride and raised a family without ever speaking of her wartime experience. Her daughter, Ann, grew up in a happy and safe home, and became a scholar, writer, and a mother herself.
It wasn’t until 1991 that Sala showed Ann a priceless collection of more than 350 letters and a diary from her years in the Nazi work camps, documents that she had kept carefully hidden in a cardboard box that she had risked her life to preserve. Scholars have declared this collection to be one of the great treasure troves of its kind.