Sala S Gift

"Do you know why I write so much? Because as long as you read, we are together." -- Raizel Garncarz (Sala's sister), April 24, 1941 Few family secrets have the power both to transform lives and to fill in crucial gaps in world history. But then, few families have a mother and a daughter quite like Sala and Ann Kirschner. For nearly fifty years, Sala kept a secret: She had survived five years as a slave in seven different Nazi work camps. Living in America after the war, she kept from her children any hint of her epic, inhuman odyssey. She held on to more than 350 letters, photographs, and a diary without ever mentioning them. Only in 1991, on the eve of heart surgery, did she suddenly present them to Ann and offer to answer any questions her daughter wished to ask. It was a life-changing moment for her scholar, writer, and entrepreneur daughter. We know surprisingly little about the vast network of Nazi labor camps, where imprisoned Jews built railroads and highways, churned out munitions and materiel, and otherwise supported the limitless needs of the Nazi war machine. This book gives us an insider's account: Conditions were brutal. Death rates were high. As the war dragged on and the Nazis retreated, inmates were force-marched across hundreds of miles, or packed into cattle cars for grim journeys from one camp to another. When Sala first reported to a camp in Geppersdorf, Poland, at the age of sixteen, she thought it would be for six weeks. Five years later, she was still at a labor camp and only she and two of her sisters remained alive of an extended family of fifty. In the first years of the conflict, Sala was aided by her close friend Ala Gertner, who would later lead an uprising at Auschwitz and be executed just weeks before the liberation of that camp. Sala was also helped by other key friends. Yet above all, she survived thanks to the slender threads of support expressed in the letters of her friends and family. She kept them at great personal risk, and it is astonishing that she was able to receive as many as she did. With their heartwrenching expressions of longing, love, and hope, they offer a testament to the human spirit, an indomitable impulse even in the face of monstrosity. Sala's Gift is a rare book, a gift from Ann to her mother, and a great gift from both women to the world.

THE STORY: Adapted from the book Sala's Gift by Ann Kirschner and based on a true account, LETTERS TO SALA is a remarkable story of a young girl's survival during wartime Germany. Five years. Seven Nazi labor camps. Over 350 hidden letters. Sala Garncarz

In three carefully researched volumes, this ground-breaking study examines the gift of tongues through two thousand years of church history. Starting in the present and working back in time, these volumes consider (1) the modern redefinition of “tongues” as a private prayer language; (2) the church’s perennial understanding of “tongues” as ordinary human languages; and (3) the Corinthian “tongues,” which, in light of Jewish liturgical tradition, turn out to have been a Semitic liturgical language requiring bilingual interpreters. This second volume tracks the perception and practice of tongues back through the first eighteen hundred years of church history, demonstrating that “tongue-speaking” was always active but puzzlingly different from today’s glossolalia. From Pope Benedict XIV’s detailed treatise in the 1700s, it works back through long-forgotten scholastic and patristic debates to the earliest Christian writers such as Irenaeus. No other resource on the subject approaches the depth and scope of the present volume.

In three carefully researched volumes, this ground-breaking study examines the gift of tongues through 2,000 years of church history. Starting in the present and working back in time, these volumes consider (1) the modern redefinition of “tongues” as a private prayer language; (2) the church’s perennial understanding of “tongues” as ordinary human languages; and (3) the Corinthian “tongues,” which, in light of Jewish liturgical tradition, turn out to have been a foreign liturgical language (Hebrew or Aramaic) requiring bilingual interpreters. In the first volume, the authors establish that modern glossolalia, far from being a supernatural gift enjoyed by certain believers since the time of Pentecost and undergoing a resurgence in modern times, has no precedent in church life prior to the nineteenth century. They discuss why German theologians, responding to the Irvingite revival, coined the term “glossolalia” in the 1830s; why Pentecostals between 1906–8 quietly began redefining “tongues” to mean a heavenly language unintelligible to human beings but pleasing to God, instead of foreign languages useful for evangelism; why Protestant cessationists believed miraculous tongues had ceased; and why interpolated idioms like “unknown tongues” in Protestant Bibles were aimed originally at Rome’s use of Latin.

Drawing on the poetry of four major voices in the Spanish lyric of today, Judith Nantell explores the epistemic works of Luis Muñoz, Abraham Gragera, Josep M. Rodríguez, and Ada Salas, arguing that, for them, the poem is the fundamental means of exploring the nature of both knowledge and poetry. In this first interpretive analysis of the epistemic nature of their poetry, Nantell innovatively engages these poets, each of whom has contributed one of their own poems along with a previously unpublished explication of their chosen poem. Each also provides an original biographical sketch to support Nantell’s development of a poetics of epiphany. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

On the whole, this book presents gift-giving as an intuitive path toward a viable economy, society, and culture here on Earth, and even toward an amiable engagement with our cosmic surroundings in the future.

Water can be a . . . • Thirst quencher • Kid drencher • Cloud fluffer • Fire snuffer Find out about the many roles water plays in this poetic exploration of water throughout the year.

In this inspiring manifesto, an internationally renowned oceanographer makes the provocative case for why protecting nature makes economic sense. Enric Sala wants to change the world--and in this groundbreaking book, he shows us how. Once we appreciate how nature works, he asserts, we will understand why its preservation is economically practical and essential to our survival. In this highly readable narrative, Sala, director of National Geographic's Pristine Seas project, tells the story of his scientific awakening, the colorful mentors whose work inspired him, and his transition from academic to activism--because, as he put it, he was tired of writing the obituary of the ocean. His revelations are surprising, and sometimes counterintuitive: Lots of sharks are actually the best indicator of a healthy ocean ecosystem, and crop diversity, rather than intensive monoculture farming, is the key to planetary abundance. For decades, Sala has spearheaded ocean protection, convincing world leaders to protect areas amounting to five times the size of Texas--and he is still passionately pushing for more. Using fascinating examples from his own expeditions and groundbreaking findings from other scientists, Sala builds the case for the economic wisdom of making room for nature, even as the population builds to eight million and grows more urbanized by the decade. Both relatable and inspiring, this powerful book will change the way you think about the world--and the future.