As the daughter of Holocaust survivors, Anna Eisen's memoir, "Pillar of
Salt" breaks the down the barrier of silence that was intended as a
protective shield for her parents and their children. From early
childhood, Anna, as a second-hand witness to the Holocaust, felt
overwhelmed by the unspoken but ever-present trauma of her parents'
past. Her father, born as Lucjan Salzman, survivor of ten different
concentration camps, is enveloped in impenetrable grief and his history
encased in secrecy. But Anna is determined to look backwards, breaking
through the silence to confront the unspoken terrors of the past. The
entire Salton family embarks on a journey through Poland unlocking a
history sealed in silence and buried by time. The Salton family's
journey takes them to the towns where Anna's parents lived as children
under Nazi occupation. The family returns to the ghetto where a
15-year-old Lucien Salton experienced his first selection and bid
farewell to his parents before they were herded into a boxcar and sent
to the deaths at Belzec concentration camp. They continue their travels
through picturesque Polish countryside, still pock mocked by the
remnants of former concentration camps and a spattering of Holocaust
memorials. By the end of her odyssey, Anna acquires a new understanding
of her legacy as a child of Holocaust survivors and how trauma is
revisited upon subsequent generations. By revisiting those the places of
trauma with her father as her guide, Anna Eisen's tour of terrors
provide her with a new understanding of how her identity has been shaped
under the shadow of the Holocaust. Anna confides that by looking back
like Lot's wife, and by taking in the whole story, "I could carry the
pain of the Holocaust and find there is more to me than a pillar of
salt."--Dena Mandel, Senior Developmental editor "Publisher"
