A Mother's Promise

'Mama's love was the only thing that made life worth living. We never left each other's side. She was everything to me.'
Renee and her mother Sala never left each other's sides. From invasion to liberation, September 1939 to April 1945, as Renee was marched from ghetto to camp, there was one constant. One hand which clutched hers - her mother's. Every day for six years, mother and daughter were bound together in hell. From ghettos to slave labour, from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen, they were a powerful source of solace and hope to one another.
The sheer force and power of Sala's love gave them both something fragile yet beautiful to cling to in an ugly, depraved world. It was her mother who hid Renee, lied to the SS, went right when she was directed left - whose small actions had lifesaving consequences. Now, for Renee, the need to share has finally overcome the desire to forget. A Mother's Promise is a love letter to a mother eighty years in the making.

Renee Salt with Kate Thompson