Sali Templer was born on October 22, 1921, into a traditionally religious Jewish family in Český Těšín. After an unsuccessful attempt to emigrate to Palestine, she crossed the border to Slovakia, which was safer for Jews at that time.
She settled in Žilina, but the anti-Jewish campaign of the local Nazis caught up with her there as well. In the spring of 1942, she was deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, where she survived selection and was transferred to the prisoner population of the main Auschwitz camp. She lived to see her liberation in this camp.
After a brief attempt to return to Český Těšín, she joined the wave of refugees heading to the camps for survivors and displaced people, the so-called DP camps, in Western Allied-occupied Germany. In Bergen-Belsen she met her future husband Shalom Templer, together they moved to Israel, where their daughter Dalia was born.
The interview was recorded on November 18, 1998 in Haifa, Israel.