NYPL, Letters To Sala

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Introduction Sala’s Europe, 1939-1945 Prewar Jewish Life and Deportation Nazi Slave Labor Camps The Judenrat Geppersdorf Nazi Postal System Ala Gertner Sala's Labor Camps Jewish Holidays Harry Haubenstock Schatzlar Liberation In America

In America

Photograph of Sala Kirschner reading the
Yiddish-language Daily Forward in Central Park
New York, 1946
NYPL, Dorot Jewish Division, Sala Garncarz Kischner Collection

In May 1946, just a little over a year after liberation, Sala and hundreds of other war brides boarded the U.S.S. George Goethals headed for New York. Sala and Sidney were married again, this time by a rabbi, on June 7, 1946. She was wearing a wedding gown borrowed from another bride by Sidney’s ever-practical mother. Sala had no family, no friends, at her wedding.

Somewhere in the three-room East Harlem apartment that she and Sidney shared with his mother, Sala hid her letters. After that, she said nothing about them, or about her life during the war, for nearly 50 years.

“I’m just a plain Jewish girl from a kosher home.” — Sala to Mrs. Jennie Kirschner, Ansbach, Germany, January 5, 1946

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Blima was reunited with her fiancé Jakub Goldberg, and they were married in Sweden.
Raizel came to the United States in 1947, Blima and Jakub in 1949. Blima died in 1953.
Raizel met and married Rabbi Ezriel Lange. She taught at the Bais Yaakov school in Brooklyn. She died in 2002.
None of the other Garncarz siblings, nieces, or nephews survived.
***

Sala and Sidney have three children, Joseph, Ann, and David. The family lived in Jackson Heights, Queens, then moved to Monsey, New York. They have eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. On March 5, 2006, Sala celebrated her 82nd birthday and 60th wedding anniversary.