Letters to Sala: A Young Woman's Life in Nazi Labor Camps February 2, 2008

February 2nd through March 27th*:
Monday through Thursday: 10:00am to 9:00pm
Friday and Saturday: 10:00am to 5:00pm
Sunday: 1:00pm to 9:00pm
*Spring Break Exhibition Hours:
Saturday, February 23rd: 1:00pm to 4:00pm
Sunday, February 24th: CLOSED
Monday, February 25th-Thursday, February 28th: 10:00am to 6:00pm

**See also under "Education" for a special related event, "Whose Story Is It: How an Archive Was Transformed into an Exhibition, a Book, a Play, and a Documentary Film" featuring curator Jill Vexler and Ann Kirschner, Sala’s daughter and author of Sala’s Gift: My Mother’s Holocaust Story (New York: Free Press, 2006), in the same venue on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 at 7:00 p.m.

"Letters to Sala" Draws on Materials from the Archives of the New York Public Library

The power of the written word to sustain life is a central theme of Letters to Sala: a Young Woman's Life in Nazi Labor Camps, a compelling collection of rare Holocaust-era letters and photographs that are part of the collections of The New York Public Library’s Dorot Jewish Division. The items—from handwritten postcards to photographs to official documents—were saved at great personal risk by Sala Garncarz from the time she entered a Nazi labor camp in 1940 until her liberation in 1945. The collection provides a remarkable first-hand view of the human drama that unfolded among Jewish victims forced to work as slave laborers.

Curated by Jill Vexler, a striking exhibition reproducing the letters, postcards, photographs, and documents will be on view at the University of Michigan’s Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library North (first floor off of the North Lobby) in Ann Arbor from February 2nd through March 28th.

"The letters that comprise this exhibition are the true embodiment of how the written word can give life," said curator Jill Vexler. "What emerges from the exhibition is an inspiring portrait of human resilience in the face of unthinkable atrocity."

“The University of Michigan Library is proud to host Letters to Sala, which chronicles the courage of a young woman and her correspondents under the extreme, dehumanizing conditions of Nazi oppression in forced labor camps from 1940 to 1945,” said Paul N. Courant, University Librarian and Dean of Libraries. “The exhibition complements the strengths of the Library, including its extensive Holocaust collections and the University’s expertise in Judaic studies and the Holocaust.

This traveling exhibition was inspired by Letters to Sala: a Young Woman's Life in Nazi Labor Camps, presented at The New York Public Library from March 7 to June 17, 2006.

Official Website: http://www.letterstosala.org