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Letters to Sala

Letters to Sala


Ala Gertner


“Sarenka, you giddy girl!”
“Sarenka, you giddy girl!”

Ala Gertner’s letters to Sala reveal a bold, modern, and courageous woman. Well educated and fluent in German, Ala was assigned to the administrative office at Geppersdorf. She shared her privileges as one of the camp elite—including her tiny private room—with her young friend, Sala. When Ala fell in love with the prisoner Bernhard Holtz, they recruited Sala to deliver their secret letters, nicknaming their swift-moving messenger “Sarenka,” Polish for “little deer.”

After nearly a year in Geppersdorf, Ala and Sala were allowed to return home, where the intensity of their friendship was captured by a local photographer. Sala returned to the camp alone, Ala having secured a position with the Judenrat in nearby Bendsburg. Although separated from Sala, Ala sustained for two more years a rare, optimistic, loving, and energetic correspondence. Forced into the Sosnowitz ghetto in March 1943, Ala was reunited with Bernhard and they were soon married. On August 1, the final liquidation of the Sosnowitz ghetto began.

“In the camp, I protected you.… Don’t be afraid. I always think of your release….” —Ala Gertner to Sala, Sosnowitz, September 1941

Ala was sent to Auschwitz, where she worked at the Union Munitions Factory. She joined an underground conspiracy to smuggle gunpowder to the Sonderkommando, the work crew that burned and buried corpses from the gas chambers. On October 7, 1944, the Sonderkommando blew up Crematorium IV and shot several SS guards. Their revolt was the only armed uprising at Auschwitz.

Ala Gertner and Sala Garncarz, September 1941
Ala Gertner and Sala Garncarz, September 1941

Most of the men who had escaped after the explosion were recaptured and killed, and four women—Ala, Roza Robota, Regina Sapirstein, and Esther Wajcblum—were arrested and charged with acts of sabotage and resistance. They were tortured and all four were hanged publicly on January 5, 1945, only a few weeks before the camp was liberated.

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