Nate Weisband plays Chaim Kaufman, a shoemaker in the Nazi labor camp who falls in love with Sala, played by Rebecca Beren.

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Sala Garncarz Kirschner was just 16 in 1940 when she was sent off to a concentration camp in Geppersdorf, Germany.

She was terrified; still, she managed to save more than 350 letters, photos and documents from her five years as a prisoner of the Nazis. During that time, she lost most of her extended family. Still, she hid her papers.

And kept them a secret for close to 50 years, until an upcoming heart surgery in 1991 moved her to share them at last with her daughter.

Those letters are the basis for Invisible Theatre's premiere production of "Letters to Sala," opening next week.

"Reading the letters after all those years gave me a tremendous sense of discovery," Sala's daughter, Ann Kirschner, said in a phone interview from New York. "It happens so often that children make discoveries like this only after the death of a parent, and I felt so lucky to have my mother by my side as I read them, explaining people and events."

Asked why she thought her mother had kept the letters a secret for all those years, Kirschner said they contained too many painful memories. "She wanted to shield her young children from them. She wanted us to grow up normal, and she was afraid that the intensity of what she had experienced would damage us as well as being painful for her to relive."

But when Ann finally learned about these experiences as an adult, she felt moved and enriched, and she wanted to share the treasure trove with others, an ambition that resulted in the book "Sala's Gift: My Mother's Holocaust Story," published by Simon & Schuster in 2006.

And it was the New York Public Library's "Letters to Sala" exhibit, with a theatrical reading conceived by Larry Sacharow, director of the theater program at Fordham University, that brought the Invisible Theatre's Susan Claassen into the story.

"Really, this play was just meant to be," said Claassen.

"IT has a long history of presenting Jewish-themed drama, like 'A Shayna Maidel' and 'Lost in Yonkers,' and one day I was just Googling Jewish plays on the Internet. That's where I learned about Larry Sacharow's reading. I called him, then I went to New York and met him and Arlene Hutton, the playwright, and one thing led to another: We agreed that IT would premiere the play in 2007 (or) 2008."

But the project was almost derailed by Sacharow's death in August 2006. In a phone interview from New York, where her play "The Nibroc Trilogy" is being rehearsed, Hutton recalled that she "almost gave up after he died. It had been such a close collaboration, but since we had made a promise to Suz (Claassen), I went on."

The story skips around in time, and always the letters are central.

"We actually see the letters," said Hutton, "see them changing hands, and we're reminded that this is a true story, and that one woman risked her own life by preserving more than 300 pieces of mail as a way of keeping these people alive."

"Letters to Sala"

• Originally conceived by: Lawrence Sacharow.

• Based on: The book "Sala's Gift" by Ann Kirschner.

• Playwright: Arlene Hutton.

• Director: Susan Claassen.

• When: Preview 3 p.m. Sunday. Regular performances 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays through April 8.

• Where: The Invisible Theatre, 1400 N. First Ave.

• Tickets: Preview, $18; regular performances, $22-$25.

• Information: 882-9721.

• Cast: Amy Almquist, Jetti Ames, Rebecca Beren, Nate Weisband and Rachel Lacy.

• Running time: 85 minutes with no intermission.

• Look for: The review in the March 23 Accent.