PILLAR OF SALT
A Daughter’s Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust
by Anna Salton Eisen with Aaron Eisen
| “Anna Salton Eisen’s PILLAR OF SALT is a profoundly moving tale of generational trauma and healing between father and daughter. Through her travels with him to Poland, and her relentless search through personal keepsakes and Nazi archives, she discovers her own history and in doing so grapples with questions in the hearts of all of us. Her writing is straightforward and present, effortlessly whisking the reader along for the journey, into the beast of the past, to emerge into a new light. I am grateful to be working with such wonderful source material as PILLAR OF SALT for a feature length documentary film.” –Jacob Wise, filmmaker of In My Father’s Words (fall 2022, JWise Productions) “Anna Salton Eisen’s important exploration of her Holocaust heritage is about building community, building connection, through history, through your family, through your story.” –Deb Liu, CEO Ancestry.com |
As the daughter of Holocaust survivors, Anna Salton Eisen breaks the silence that was intended as a protective shield against the unspeakable past in her new memoir, PILLAR OF SALT: A Daughter’s Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust (Mandel Vilar Press Trade Paperback Original; April 26, 2022; $19.95). A new voice in Holocaust literature, Anna begins this heart-wrenching memoir as she looks back to her own youth when she discovers two hidden watercolor paintings depicting the horrors of the Holocaust and sets out to uncover the truth of her father’s past. Her quest leads her on a journey to unlock a history sealed in silence and buried by time. With her father as her guide, she travels through the picturesque Polish countryside pockmarked by the remnants of former concentration camps and sites of desolate Holocaust memorials. Together with her family, they return to the ghetto where her father’s imprisonment in ten concentration camps over three years began. They also find their way back to his boyhood town and into his childhood home where painful memories exist, but strangers now live. Through her keen observations and open heart, Anna combines the meticulous work of an archaeologist with the compassionate perspective of a daughter.
“Writing PILLAR OF SALT has allowed me to tell the story of looking back and sharing how I was changed and made incredible connections when I took on the legacy of the second generation. I found my father when I tried to help him carry the pain and memories of the Holocaust.” -Anna Salton Eisen
PILLAR OF SALT is a second book for Anna Salton Eisen, who co-wrote The 23rd Psalm: A Holocaust Memoir with her father, George Salton, which will be released in a new expanded edition in Fall 2022 (Mandel Vilar Press).
ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Anna Salton Eisen was a founding member and the first president of Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. She has conducted extensive research into the Holocaust and spoken on that topic to school and community groups. She served as a docent for the Dallas Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies (now the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum) and conducted Holocaust survivor interviews for the USC Shoah Foundation. Anna is an Ambassador to #everynamecounts, a digital initiative of the Arolsen Archives, the world’s most comprehensive archive on the victims and survivors of Nazi persecution. A licensed social worker, Salton Eisen formerly practiced as a therapist, specializing in mental health and trauma. She lives in Westlake, Texas.
Aaron Eisen is a third-generation Jewish writer. Along with co-authoring PILLAR OF SALT, he is an important part of the upcoming documentary film project, In My Father’s Words. A graduate of the University of Virginia, Aaron is working on a non-fiction book about the impact of the Holocaust on the humanities in contemporary America.
On sale in time for Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 28, 2022.
More praise for PILLAR OF SALT:
“A vividly colored, elegant study of family dynamics as two generations eventually came to terms with a tragic Holocaust past.”
—Richard Breitman, author of The Berlin Mission: The American Who Resisted Nazi Germany from Within
“Navigating her way through the ruins of memory, Anna bears eloquent witness to the scope of the Holocaust that continues to cast its shadow over generations…. Anna found the courage to pen these powerful words [and] we must find the courage to read them and be transformed into witnesses.”
—David Patterson, Hillel A. Feinberg Distinguished Chair in Holocaust Studies, University of Texas at Dallas
“A true and beautiful story of a daughter’s quest to understand her parents’ haunted past, and to discover … the indissoluble nature of love and family. A powerful and poignant read.”
—Jennifer Rosner,author ofThe Yellow Bird Sings,a National Jewish Book Award Finalist
| For further information, review copy requests, or to schedule an interview with Anna Salton Eisen, please contact Rachel Tarlow Gul at Over the River Public Relations: rachel@otrpr.com, 201-503-1321. |
ISBN 9781942134824, 190 text pages plus 8 pages of photos, artwork, and map, 6 x 9, $19.95
E-ISBN 9781942134831, 190 text pages plus 8 pages of photos, artwork, and map, 6 x 9, $9.99
For more information, visit https://www.mvpublishers.org/.
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