A Monsey woman is sharing her story of survival decades after being enslaved in a Nazi labor camp.

Sala Kirschner says she survived the horrors of the Holocaust because of the more than 300 letters written to her during her time at Nazi labor camps. They are stories of friendship and bonds, which were formed when Sala, the youngest of 11 children, was taken from her family in Poland at the age of 16 in 1940. All the letters and pictures were kept inside a leather satchel, which Sala smuggled into seven different labor camps and hid from the Nazis.

Sala's childhood friends, brothers, sisters and parents were taken to Auschwitz and never heard from again; only she and two other sisters survived. She says without the letters there is no telling what would have happened to her. She says they helped her believe in a life outside the camp.

And while Sala kept the letters hidden from her own children for years, she is now revealing them for all to see in an exhibit. Sala is also hopeful that by sharing these letters that inspired her to live, the horror that was the Holocaust will never happen again. Her story and the exhibit are all being captured in a book written by Sala's daughter called ?Sala's Gift.?

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