Description
About the Authors
Anna Salton Eisen grew up in a home where her parents’ Holocaust experiences were a well-kept secret. She later moved to Texas where she became active in the Jewish community as a founding member of the first synagogue in her area. Serving as a docent for the Dallas Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies and an interviewer for Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, Salton Eisen continued to search for information about her family’s survival and destruction in the Holocaust. In 2001, she co-authored with her father The 23rd Psalm: A Holocaust Memoir. Salton Eisen is also the subject of a forthcoming documentary about her father’s life. She now conducts extensive research into the genealogy of her family and has discovered many original documents which record her father’s concentration camp experience. Salton Eisen and her family reside in Westlake, Texas.
Aaron Eisen was born and raised in Texas, where he struggled to understand his identity as both a Jew and a descendant of Holocaust survivors. He assisted in the research for a documentary film about his grandfather and helped his mother piece together her personal understanding of the Holocaust. He is now working on a third-generation Holocaust memoir.
Reviews
“[A] moving account…Pillar of Salt is a well-written emotive memoir, a journey of remembrance.” — The Jerusalem Post
“The narrative comes to life as Eisen’s father transforms from never speaking of the Holocaust, to making it his life’s work…the relationship between Eisen and her father becomes the emotional core of the book.” — Tablet Magazine
“With its clear, unadorned recounting of a family’s pain, and of the echoes of the Shoah that continue down through generations, Pillar of Salt stands alone as a firsthand account.” — Jewish Book Council
“Anna Salton Eisen inspires me. Antisemitism and Holocaust denial are real. Quality Holocaust education is necessary. By sharing her family stories and personal journey with honesty and clarity, she illuminates our past and helps us recognize the truth and challenge of the Holocaust.” —Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, who was held hostage at his synagogue during an antisemitic attack in January 2022
“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
“Pillar of Salt is a profoundly moving story, soon to be the subject of a feature-length documentary film, In My Father’s Words. . . She claims her hidden family history, and in doing so, grapples with questions in the hearts of all of us.” —Jacob Wise, Cinematographer and Documentary Filmmaker
“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 of The Yellow Bird Sings, a National Jewish Book Award Finalist
“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
“Readers interested in history will appreciate “Pillar of Salt” for its insights into Jewish life and experience through a devastatingly tragic moment in history.” — The Christian Chronicle
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