Becoming Jewish - an inspiring conversion process

Letters to Sala

This past weekend, I attended an exhibition about a young woman’s life in nazi labor camps. I’ve been in Jewish exhibitions before but that was my first time after I started my conversion process.
Sala was taken from home when she was 16 and survived five years in seven different forced labor camps. During this time, she wrote letters. These were not mere pieces of paper, they were the memory of people she loved, friends and family. She risked her life to preserve these letters.
It was unbelievable to be in the same room as the worn brown leather portfolio, the letters and postcards written in German, Polish and Yiddish and the “spill and spell” cardboard where she stored the letters for so many years. There are more than 300 letters that survived those years.
I was really touched by her story, her way to see beyond the years of horror. From her letters, I learned about friendship and love, about surviving. Above all, I feel the urge to act and not let her memory die. I know that I do not have any family member that went through those years of horror, however, reading her letters I felt more connected to the Jewish history.

posted by Ruth @ 4:52 PM