Born at Kassa, she was a bookbinder, a milliner, a journalist, engaged and then released from her engagement, before entering the Sisters of Social Service in Budapest at thirty. She ran hostels for working women and wrote for the congregation's review. From 1943 she hid Jews in the society's houses (around a hundred, by the counts made afterwards). On 27 December 1944 Arrow Cross militiamen took her away with the people she was sheltering and shot her on the bank of the Danube.
In their own words
Alleluia. Here I am, send me.
Motto of her perpetual profession, Pentecost 1940, in Latin: 'Alleluja! Ecce ego, mitte me!', after Isaiah 6:8 (Mona and Szeghalmi, Salkaházi Sára élete és munkássága, Ecclesia, 1990, p. 38)
Today, out of gratitude and love for the Society and for the sisters, I offer myself as the sacrifice of the Society.
Act of offering of her life, autumn 1943 (14 September 1943 is the date of the authorisation, not of the offering; Manna's translation from the Hungarian, after Mona and Szeghalmi, Salkaházi Sára élete és munkássága, Ecclesia, 1990, p. 48)
Giving oneself to God. I think that is the secret of everything. A complete and entire surrender of self.
Diary, 16 October 1943; Manna's translation from the Hungarian, after Mona and Szeghalmi, Salkaházi Sára élete és munkássága, Ecclesia, 1990, p. 49