"Kirschner knew that her mother was born in Poland, the youngest of 11 children, and that she had survived a Nazi camp and came to the U.S. as a war bride. In 1991... Sala Kirschner... learned that she needed triple-bypass surgery and then showed her daughter a collection of more than 350 letters, postcards, and scraps of paper... from her years in... labor camps from 1940 to 1945. The letters... written by more than 80 people... told the story of a family, a city, and an elaborate system of slavery. There are hand-drawn birthday cards, some with poems, and love letters that had been smuggled to Kirschner's mother... Kirschner posits that these private papers "create an emotional history of the war... fear, loneliness, and despair, always returning to the dominant theme of hope... "