“As if we really were bearing witness”: Connecting Talented High School Actors with the Sala Garncarz Collection of the Holocaust Letters

Sala Garncarz, a young girl from Poland, was imprisoned in seven Nazi camps between 1940–1945, but miraculously survived. She preserved over 300 letters written to her during the war. Learn how this unique collection inspires young students today.

As a curator, I am often amazed by how some important things evolve from our work naturally as if life itself exposes us to the opportunities to help build meaningful connections. 

Just recently, visits of two gifted high school students and actors Lucienne Lemieux and Sam Yates and their families from Decatur, Georgia, brought some fresh uplifting perspectives to the importance of the Sala Garngarz collection of the Holocaust letters. Although the families of the students contacted us totally independently from each other, the purpose of their visits was very similar: both Lucienne and Sam recently performed in the Decatur High School theater production of Arlen Hutton’s play Letters to Sala and were eager to see the original letters and photographs from Sala Garncarz’s archive that is now a part of the Dorot Jewish Collection. 

Sala Garncarz Kirschner (1924–2018) was a Holocaust survivor who as a teenage girl was an inmate in seven Nazi labor camps in Poland and Germany during World War II. She was able to maintain frequent correspondence with her relatives and friends imprisoned at other ghettos and concentration camps during the first years of the war. Sala accumulated over 300 letters from her dear ones which she managed to carry with her from one camp to another, often risking her life. Tragically, many of her correspondents perished in the war. Even one surviving letter represents the utmost value, but a collection of this scope is extraordinary especially if we consider the age of its young owner. 

Ann Kirschner, American historian and daughter of Sala, spent years researching her mother’s story and wrote a book about her experiences. This book became a source for the theater play Letters to Sala by Arlene Hutton. It first premiered off-Broadway in 2013 and played over 100 times by professional and student actors at theaters and schools across the United States. The play continues to inspire young talents and their audiences today. Both Lucienne and Sam say that the emotional experience of acting and identifying themselves with the characters in the play transformed their lives forever. 

Lucienne Lemieux played the role of Ala Gertner, Sala’s close friend whom she first met on the way to the Geppersdorf labor camp in Germany in October 1940. Ala, a brave and intelligent young woman in her early 30s, began working for the administration of the camp while often taking risks to help other inmates. She was very protective of Sala. They kept in touch by correspondence even after Ala was transferred to another camp. Eventually Ala was sent to Auschwitz where she joined the underground resistance group and was killed during the uprising in the camp in October 1944. Ala’s life was very tragic and short, but her letters to Sala radiate immense love, optimism, humanity and persistence.  

Before performing in the play, Lucienne Lemieux studied acting for two years. She described how the play elevated her emotionally, “I never really had a big role like this one in anything before, so learning how to grasp and display such an interesting and intense story was a difficult but important process. I learned how to express worry and love in a way I had never fully understood before. Throughout the show I learned the struggles Sala and her family went through, the horrid reality of that time period, and the importance of this story”.

Sam Yates played the roles of Harry Haubenstock and Sidney Kirschner, both romantically connected to Sala. Harry Haubenstock, a young businessman from Czechoslovakia, was Sala’s admirer whom she met at the labor camp Gross Paniow in Poland in October 1942. The two fell in love but were later reassigned to different camps and hoped to meet after the war. Harry survived the death march from the Dyhernfurth camp and returned to Prague, however Sala and Harry never met again. A young American soldier Sidney Kirschner met Sala in September 1945 during the Rosh Hashanah celebration for the survivors organized by the American Army in the Bavarian village Ansbach. They conversed in Yiddish, the only language that they had in common. Sidney and Sala got married in Germany and arrived together in New York in 1946.

The initial run of the show at Decatur High School in October 2022 was very successful. At the suggestion of Herschel Greenblatt, a Holocaust survivor from Atlanta, the young actors presented the play again for the local Jewish community, mostly children of the survivors, on January 22, 2023. It was a tremendous emotional experience for both actors and the audience. Here's what Sam said about it, “I was struck by the way that our audience treated us—as if we were equal with these memorials, these monuments. As if we really were bearing witness, what Mr. Greenblatt always told us to do. There was a palpable sense of sanctity in the theater, from the cast and from the audience”. The revenues from the performance went to support The Memorial to Six Million in Atlanta's Greenwood Cemetery. 

Lucienne beautifully summarized in her email, “We put this play on because the story isn’t told nearly as much as it should be. Sala’s story is one to be admired. Her strength and the strength of everyone else in her story is something people should know about, and I'm so honored that I was able to share a piece of her story by playing the role of Ala”.

It was immensely gratifying to speak with Lucienne and Sam and meet with their families who supported the actors and made sure to come to The New York Public Library during their trips to New York.  We also ought to thank the teachers who trained the students and made this production possible. 

Meetings with Lucienne and Sam and their families once again underscored the extraordinary power of the original documents and the importance of immediate contact with the past that libraries, archives, and museums can provide. For the younger generation, the Sala Garncarz archive at The New York Public Library is a unique inspiring connection that indeed helps to shape their personalities and outlook.

Learn more about Sala Garncarz in this archived digital exhibition, Letters to Sala.