Big Sonia

- It's chilly.

I got some little sweets for us.

(bright music) - [Leah] Hey Grandma, good morning.

- Put a little sweater on.

Please, you'll catch a cold.

Give her the sweater, please.

Really, look at that, you see, in here.

Okay, for everyone.

(Leah laughing) - [Leah] Never too early to eat chocolate.

(Sonia laughing) - [Sonia] The sunshine is trying to come out.

- [Leah] It'll come out today, I know it.

- It's really interesting.

Look, above those clouds, how beautiful.

When you, when you fly, it's unbelievable.

It's bog-minding, bog-minding, all this nature.

- [Leah] Probably feel better talking about it than not.

- Well, I'm handling it better since I got older than when I was younger.

It's still, it's, um, it's really for a normal person it's very difficult to understand.

And you always kind of think, "Oh, it will come back on me."

You know what I mean?

- [Leah] Yeah, I'll see you in there.

- It's a beautiful day.

- [Leah] Okay, Grandma, we'll start this way.

- [Steve] So have a seat at these two microphones, the green and the blue, and then we'll do a quick sound check with them.

So you'll wear these headphones.

They're adjustable, here, the size.

All right, let's make sure that one's on.

- [Leah] We have to make sure that her hair is okay, first.

- [Steve] Don't bend too much, whoa, that's.

All right.

- Can you hear in there?

- Okay.

- [Leah] You want me to change the volume?

Can you hear anything in there?

- Oh, she can.

- Oh, she can?

- Yes.

- You're good?

- Do you hear me well?

You hear me well?

Yeah, okay.

(somber music) - [Marcie] Sonia Warshawski lives in Kansas City.

Her granddaughter, Leah, is a Seattle-based filmmaker, and she's making a documentary about her grandmother's past, and more recent past.

Hello, Sonia.

- Hello, how are you?

- [Marcie] I'm good.

I'm curious how clear your memories are of 70 years ago, and how do you think those experiences of your youth, those experiences that are so hard to imagine for most of us, how they shaped this woman that you are seven decades later?

- Well, it never will leave me, and it's really a long story, but I will tell you how I made it.

It was a miracle.

(gentle bright music) Whoops.

(soft bright music) Put the lights on.

The iron on.

And turn on here.

(rousing solemn music) (rousing solemn music continues) (rousing solemn music continues) Hello, how are you?

It's so good to see you, wonderful.

- This is Petra.

- Yes, how are you, sweetheart?

- Good.

- Good.

- [Customer] You have time for a little alteration?

- Oh, yes, of course I have time, anytime for you.

Okay, Fred.

- That's great.

- 32, yeah, okay.

- 32.

- Yeah, that's.

- That's it.

- Okey dokey, Fred.

- [Fred] I've been coming here for 14 years.

This is a place like no other.

- [Sonia] You have a lovely week.

- You do the same.

- Okay, sweetheart.

- [Customer] We met Sonia, I think it's been 25, 30 years we've been coming here.

- Yeah, okay, that's all's to it.

- Thank you.

- I'll help you down.

- [Customer] To survive in this location, especially at this mall all these years is a miracle in itself, 'cause everything upstairs is closed.

- I usually, you know, have a good eye for clothes.

And like I say, if someone doesn't ask me, I don't say anything.

But if they ask me.

We can do it here, and it'll be perfect.

And you don't need a bra.

Let mamma see.

That's perfect.

Okay.

- Look forward to see you next Saturday.

- Thanks a lot, Sonia.

- Bye-bye.

- Bye now.

- It was a pleasure.

- [Customer] Bye, thanks.

- It's up and downs, you know what I mean, but if it's very, very slow, I also, Grandma likes to doodle, okay.

(gentle bright music) I have got a lot of doodles over the years.

So really, when you think about it, it's like a medicine.

In school, I was very good in drawing.

Yeah, I love flowers and birds, whatever is in the nature, flying.

Especially, I love butterflies, too.

It's just like you are in a different world, I guess, really.

(laughing) Because you really sometimes don't know what will come out in doodling, you know?

Yeah, it's like a therapy, really, really and truly, yes, it is.

- [Marcie] One of the things I thought about is you are, no offense, but you're no longer a young woman.

In fact, you're one of the last living survivors of the Nazi Holocaust.

- Yes, I'm aware of it.

(laughing) - [Marcie] And I'm wondering how clear your memories of 70 years ago actually are.

- I think very clear.

You live with that all your life, and you can never forget, because if there is hell, I was in that hell.

(somber music) (gentle bright music) (air raid sirens) (airplanes rumbling) (bombs booming) (machine guns rattling) You see, when the war broke out I was 13, and they came in like in September the 9th.

So, I was close, almost 14, you see?

(solemn music) When the first biggest deportation took place, I shall never forget in my life because I was like in a attic, looking over what was taking place.

And I witnessed myself horrible, horrible things.

Looking down, I saw this happen, (machine guns rattling) and the bullets, all the time, (bullets whizzing) because sometimes the people tried to escape, you know.

The hiding place was under the bed, and it was in the floor cut out, you know, like a square, and then you go in and down, you close it, but we didn't have any air, you know.

(dog growling) (dog barks) When they found us, through, they had, they came with German Shepherds, and you know, those dogs sniffed us out.

(solemn music) When they took us out, we had to kneel and they were bringing other people from the hidings.

And we knew they may even shot us right there.

And they took us out already from the hiding, this was.

My brother, my father.

I never saw them again.

And somehow, my little sister escaped.

And me and my mom wound up on the station, onto the cattle train.

It's impossible to erase it.

(steam gurgling) When you have such horrible experiences as a youngster, it left a fear, some kind of fear that you cannot, a normal person would not even understand.

Because those horrible things, what I have seen, the skeletons of those people.

So, I am damaged, there is no doubt about it.

If I were to be not, I would be lying.

So, I keep myself always busy and this helps me not to think so much about it, what I went through.

This dark, terrible, spot.

The dark spot.

(gentle bright music) Isn't it nice weather, Regina?

(laughing) - [Jennifer] It is my great honor to introduce Sonia Warshawski and her daughter Regina.

(audience clapping) - So my mother is the only Holocaust survivor in the Kansas City area, who is out speaking regularly about her experience.

So I'm going to start my presentation with an overview of what happened to my mom, chronologically before, during, and after the war.

Then my mother will come up and speak.

I want to start with one of the only remaining photos of my family before the war.

My mom is highlighted, there, in the middle.

Her sister is the little girl in the back row with pigtails.

Everyone else in this photo was murdered.

Sonia's sister survived the war in the forest with the partisans and lives in Israel now.

My mom's story of survival is incredible too.

From capture, as a teen just like you, to witnessing the worst in three different death camps, to her liberation, and marrying another survivor, my father.

Then settling here in Kansas City to raise me, and my brother and sister.

- [Marcie] I know that you have made it part of your business to tell people firsthand what happened, and I wonder what happens to that history?

What happens to the stories when you are gone?

- This is the reason I am speaking about it, speaking up.

And I will tell you what prompted me.

It was an awakening for me, when I heard the skinheads denying it never happened.

It was just like a thunder entered into my brain, into my mind.

To say, "Hey, Sonia, this was the reason you survived.

You have to speak for them."

In Birkenau Auschwitz, when one day when we are counted, and the SS men went through, through the rows, and just, you know, took our numbers, and they start calling off those numbers, where they supposed to go to the gas chamber?

I used to say to my daughter, if I reach one heart, I accomplish something.

My greatest fulfillment is speaking to the students in schools, because this is our future generation.

And then, in a few minutes, when you see these horrible, horrible clouds (sighs) from the chimney.

So you can imagine, I don't know if you can imagine, because you never knew when it will be your time.

Speaking from your heart, and speaking what took place, and you were the witness, if I reach their hearts, and they make a change in their life and take out the hate, this would be my greatest accomplishment.

Well, I want to thank you very much for coming and listening to me.

I was a little nervous, and I hope you forgive me for that.

(audience clapping) Thank you, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

(gentle bright music) Isn't that from the eighth grade, huh?

Isn't that beautiful.

Oh, I was a little nervous.

- You were wonderful.

You made me cry.

- Right in here.

- I'm Grace Lamar, 14.

I grew up in a really small town in Missouri, and my mom grew up in Illinois, and she saw her dad...

I never had a grandpa on my mom's side because when they were little, someone from work got drunk and mad at him, and he got shot in the house.

And my mom doesn't talk about it, but I just know that it's something that she had to go through.

And I really appreciate my mom in my life, 'cause she is a survivor and she is a fighter.

She kind of reminds me of you because she has that little power.

So, she's definitely.

- [Sonia] Good example for you.

- My name is Caroline, I'm 14.

I am a Catholic.

- My name is Ehsan Javed.

I am from New York, age 13.

I am Muslim, but I do relate to the Jewish people and how they survived the Holocaust, because they are like a brother religion to us.

- My name's Chris Morris.

I'm Hispanic.

My mom was pregnant with me in Honduras, and I don't know my real dad.

(crying) - I know how you feel.

I know exactly how you feel.

- My grandma passed away in front of me.

(sobbing) And I miss her.

I think about her every day.

- [Sonia] You're gonna be all right, you're gonna be all right.

- [Caroline] I can kind of relate to how you feel because I know, like, I love my family more than anything, and like, my mom is my best friend.

- [Sonia] That's wonderful.

- And so I don't know what I would do without her.

Sorry, I'm just.

And my dad and all my siblings, I don't know, it's just, I just can't even imagine.

Those are, like all those years of your life that you're never going to get back and you have the wisdom of, you know, a 40-year-old when you're 15 and that's crazy.

I just respect you so much.

I don't think I would ever be able to even stand that.

- [Sonia] I was so young, your age, you know, when the war broke out, 13 or 14.

And to see, witnessing things what I have seen.

But I will not hate, because the hate will destroy me, and I will be a hater like them.

But you young people, I hope in the future you will be strong and really stand up for the right things.

For the right things, because on the bottom the line, the main thing is not to close your eyes when something is going not right.

- Just your ability to say that you're not ever going to hate.

I mean, when you're fighting with your siblings you'll be like, "Oh, I hate you" or whatever, but you don't hate them, obviously, but even just to say that is just wrong, you know, considering the fact that you actually have a reason to hate and you're not.

And I think that that'll stick with me for the rest of my life.

So, thank you, for that.

- Thank you, thank you.

(group clapping) Thank you, and stay strong.

And just know, you going to be a strong fellow, you will see, love.

Thank you, thank you.

Thank you, thank you.

Thank you, thank you.

And you are the wise fellow.

(laughing) Wonderful, wonderful.

- [Caroline] You changed my life.

- Thank you, thank you, for having me.

- Thank you.

- That makes my day.

Okay, I love you, I love you all.

(gentle bright music) I never thought, really, that I wind up with this little shop.

I have a very good eye for clothes, but let me tell you, the professional tailor was really John, my husband, yes.

In the war, when the Germans came in, so they had a lot, they used tailors.

So I have to take out.

But here, you can see him here, by the machine, sewing.

Yeah, when he was still not that far gone, you know.

Yeah, that's him, yeah.

You see, see him, this is the machine over there that he liked to use, yeah.

So it is so hard to, to let it go, let's put it this way, yeah.

It, uh, brings memories.

Sad memories, but memories.

The worst one was seeing myself, my mother, walking to the gas chamber.

(somber music) (dogs barking) It was really, I would say, fall, but it was a beautiful day, sunny.

(dogs barking) (soldiers shouting in German) And, uh, left and right, we knew already, each one, especially in the camps, what it means.

Selection.

(somber music continues) The ones where they were still, like myself, to the right, we were all to stay on, working.

And the ones that were supposed to go to the gas chamber was to the left, myself to the right.

And my mom to the left, myself to the right.

(somber music continues) (dogs barking) (woman screaming faintly) It was early in the morning when I hear the sirens and I knew something was taking place.

Like something was pushing me, so I came closer to the door and trying to find a little, and it was a little tiny peep hole.

And I looked out exactly in the time that column, the women's column were going into the gas chamber.

And all of them knew where they were going.

And especially when I saw my mom in this column, they usually put them like in five in rows.

And I saw her holding together in arms with another lady from my hometown.

(somber music continues) This, as long 'til I die, will never go out of my mind.

Oh, this I want to show you, okay.

This is my bedroom, still the king sized bed, which I sleep on this side, as you can tell, it goes a little down.

Oh, under the pillow, okay.

Yeah, this is, this is really unbelievable.

It at least had to be 75 years.

And this she had carried with her, and this was my mother's.

This is what's left of this scarf.

- [Leah] That looks like like Swiss cheese.

- Yeah, that's right.

You can see the color was so vivid beautiful, yes, yes You know, this is what I cherish.

It's so dear to me that no one, no one can understand, and I cannot even describe it myself when I hold this in my hands.

Whenever I go to sleep, she's with me.

She's always with me.

(bright upbeat music) (bright upbeat music continues) It's good, you know, to be, to have excitement, in my case, to be with people, to meet my people.

This is a great thing for me.

You feel alive, you know what I mean?

I feel I'm alive.

I have to keep busy, otherwise I'll be lost, I believe.

(lively mambo music) Oh, hello Jeanna, how are you?

Anyway, enjoy your slacks, okay?

- Thank you so much.

- It will be still pretty, because it's so short in the front.

- [Regina] The fact that that tailor shop is still open, we can give my mother 100% credit for that.

- Hi, how are you?

- [Sonia] My favorite color, purple.

- [Regina] Because of her personality.

- When you wear it, you'll think of me.

How about that?

- Thank you.

- See, she has good taste, see?

(chuckling) - [Regina] And determination.

- You really have very good taste.

They don't make them anymore like this.

(bright music) - There you go.

- Thank you very much.

And enjoy it.

- [Regina] And you know, yeah, the fact that it's just in this ridiculous location.

- [Morrie] The place is like a ghost palace, you know?

And when you walk around it, you can feel the energy that was here once, and now it's just a dead shell of itself.

- Oh, Matt how are you?

- [Regina] It's pretty amazing.

She gets up in the morning, she's dressed, she's there by 10 o'clock.

- Yeah, okay.

- [Regina] And she's there six days a week.

- [Sonia] Okay, that's all what we need.

- We're through?

- Yeah.

The surgery's over.

(laughing) - [Regina] She has no interest in taking time off.

- And if you need them faster, you need them sooner, please give me a call.

And you have a lovely day, have a lovely day.

- Yes, ma'am, thank you.

- Thank you.

- [Sonia] You're welcome.

- Her store is her being, it is.

I mean, not just financial, she needs it.

It's nourishment for her.

It's second to her family.

- Okay, sweetheart, and I shall see you.

- I really think it's the most important thing in her life.

(Sonia laughing) - When I came out from this hell, I really could not even feel happy ever.

And sometimes even people were joking about something, I would catch myself if I was even laughing, I felt guilty.

And it's very probably difficult for a normal person to grasp and understand.

You live with that all your life, I want to point out to you.

You will live with that.

The beatings were all the time going on and they would take off, you know, whatever you were wearing, and sometimes they would do it a different way, beat you to, sometimes, to death.

(somber music) In Birkenau Auschwitz, you were living every moment with fear.

It was really like living in hell.

And I went through terrible two beatings, I want you to know.

One beating SS woman was beating me so strong, the two front teeth, she knocked out.

(somber music continues) The worst beating was, um, we were making some braids, and each braid had to be tested if it's strong enough, because this was going to wrap the bombs, you see, for the German pilots.

So one day, the main SS man from Auschwitz, and he started to test those braids, and one broke, another broke.

So he called me up.

I was pushing away, pushing away, and there was no way for me to escape.

And he was beating me up with his boots.

He was wearing heavy boots, and he was beating me up from top to bottom.

When they left, I was all bloody.

Blood was going, gushing from all over.

I really don't know how I made this, this was my worst beating I got.

And the girls couldn't believe it that I survived this.

People don't know, when they look at you, what really inside left you.

It's left a scar, a very deep scar in me.

You never knew when it will hit you.

And still, I was managing what is inside of me.

And I wouldn't wish for anybody to understand what's happening.

You don't know even why.

And you are there.

And it takes a long time until you get out of it.

And it's the first time I'm talking about it.

That's right.

(Sonia sniffing) But, um, you go on.

You know, it's hard for me to recall if they ever saw me crying, could be.

I really tried my best to protect them, and I kept a lot of things away.

There are some things I didn't want them to know.

When the time already came when they saw my number, and they would ask me, "Mama, what is this?"

You can imagine, in that moment, what can you tell them?

And I used to say, "Well, they put this number because if I get lost, they will found me, they'll find your mama."

And that's it, and closed.

As older I got, and I looked back and reading between the lines, that they really felt it.

- [Morrie] My house was really loud.

(chuckles) There was a lot, there was a lot of yelling and screaming in my house.

And a lot of discord, you know?

I mean, there were also lots of moments of fun, and love and affection, but it was a difficult house.

- [Regina] Growing up as a child of survivors is, um.

- You always feel a little different.

- Always felt different.

- Other kids just seemed a little more natural and free.

- [Regina] You have a different outlook on the world, as a young person.

You know it can be a scary place, and you know that bad things can happen to you and your family.

- I think I always knew that they'd been through something horrific.

My mother's behavior, the number on her arm.

- [Morrie] The hard part is watching your mother relive these moments.

And then watching her pain.

- [Regina] I mean, I had a happy childhood, but there was no question that what happened to them was so different than the experience that my friend's parents had, who were born in the States.

- [Debbie] Every time I got my mother upset, afterwards I always felt guilty.

"Oh, my God, she's been through hell, and I'm putting her through more hell, how can I do this," kind of thing.

- [Leah] So, Dad, I didn't really know Grandma that well growing up, but it seems like there would be a lot of pressure on you.

- Well, it's a burden and a gift.

And each one of us kind of has dealt with it in different ways.

- [Debbie] And I got to an age where you could start having friends come over to spend the night.

I never wanted to have anybody over to that house.

I would always go to their house.

But one of the main reasons I didn't want to have a girlfriend come spend the night was that my father used to yell in his sleep, in the middle of the night.

And I mean painful yelling.

And you know, I would wake up sometimes and lay there and think, "Oh my God, what's he dreaming about?

What happened to him?"

Especially when you consider that he was able to tell funny stories about the Holocaust.

Well, in his dreams, what he really went through was hell.

- [Regina] And you know it happened.

It happened to your parents.

It wasn't on television.

It wasn't a book that you read.

I mean, you're hearing it firsthand, you're feeling it firsthand.

- [Morrie] So this is something Id completely forgotten about.

It's an anthology of poems by children of Holocaust survivors.

And I remembered having a poem published in it, but until I just opened it up, I hadn't remembered what poem it was.

The poem was called "Sonia at 32."

(chuckles) I don't remember this poem at all, but I'll read it for you.

And I haven't seen it in like a long time.

"Sonia at 32."

"The lady never shakes free the ashes of the dead.

Dark clouds, dark cauliflower fists.

I climb the cherry tree for her this year and carry five gallon jars of fresh clover honey up rickety backstairs.

This lady is the witness who never forgets.

She hangs wet wash on the line in a stiff wind against a background of dust.

She yells at the dog catcher and cuts chicken to the bone.

She cries long distance about this and that, about the little man who is her son.

The little son who is her husband.

Over and over she sings the song, her dead brother."

I can't read it.

(sobbing) Sorry.

(computer chimes) - We're good.

- Hello, sweetheart.

- [Leah] Hi, Grandma.

- [Sonia] Hi, sweetie, how are you?

- Good, how are you?

There you are.

Hi.

- Here I am.

- Okay, do I need to tilt it or anything?

- No, your hair looks good, Grandma.

(laughing) - [Sonia] Okay.

- Looking good, looking good.

- There's a lot, a lot of problems now.

- [Leah] What's going on?

- Want me to read it to you?

Termination of occupancy, occupancy, yeah?

I don't know how to pronounce it right.

And it says, "Dear sir or madam, please allow this letter to serve as formal notice of your lease cancellation, effective July the 3rd.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me," so on and so on.

It was really a shocking point for me.

And I have to prepare myself, if I have to close it, that's it.

But, now what, this is what I'm saying to myself, "Hey, Sonia, what's happening now?"

I have to think, "You survived Hitler, you survived so horrible things that I cannot believe myself sometimes when I close my eyes, how I survived."

You know, I tell you one thing, Leah.

It's always in my mind, when my mama used to tell me, "Remember, whenever you are down, look more down and you'll be on top."

(Leah chuckles) - [Marcie] How many years have you been doing this?

- For many years, I cannot even count, you know, exactly how many years I start to speak up.

It took a long time, because I visualized, I was very naive, that now people will really take out the hate from their hearts, and respect you for what you are as a human being, but I was very, very wrong.

(somber music) And this is very difficult for me.

It touches me so deeply when I hear and I see we're going backwards and the hate is still growing, more than I ever would dream.

So you go on and you become, in a way, very disappointed in the world, and feeling also the same way now, here.

Speaking up is not enough.

- I was starting out a life sentence, and, you know, at 17 with a life sentence.

- I was young, and immature when I came to prison.

I was not a humble person.

(detector beeps) - Excuse me, ma'am.

- Uh oh, I'm sorry.

- Still need to get processed.

(somber music continues) - I mean, I spent a lot of my life not really contributing much, other than, you know, heartache, and I just really didn't have any use for anything positive, I just thought, you know, "I'm gonna be a prison guy."

- [Inmate] Hey, what's up, Rocky Balboa?

- Do you just wanna turn around and get your backside?

- Sometimes you never know who you're going to meet that's gonna change your life, and what shape or form they're gonna come in.

- My name is SuEllen Fried, I am 82 years old, and I'm involved in a program in all the Kansas prisons called Reaching Out From Within.

The national recidivism statistics are between 50 and 67% of all of the men and women who are released will return at least once.

Our program, if you attend between 60 or more meetings, that means a little more than a year, it drops to 8%.

(group clapping) There are some rituals connected with Reaching Out From Within that are very important.

- Promise yourself to be so strong, that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.

- [All] Promise yourself.

- The Optimist Creed, we finish with it every night, through every group, we finish with it.

We wanna leave with at least a thought or a feeling that if you just believe that things are gonna be all right, that's a big majority of things being all right.

- [All] Promise yourself.

- So here I am having coffee and reading a newspaper about the closing of a shopping center, and they're interviewing Sonia.

And the interviewer is saying to her, "You've lost so many things in your life, you've had so many disappointments, how do you face the world every day?"

And she said, "If you look up on the wall, you will see the Optimist Creed, and when I come in every morning, that's the first thing that I look at."

And I thought to myself, "Sonia and The Optimist Creed.

The prisoners and the Optimist Creed.

I have to bring them together."

- Birkenau Auschwitz was really like to be in hell, 'cause you would never believe it, what a human can do to another one.

One day, that I was working in the fields one day, and here comes a truck with, from the crematoria, the ashes.

We were spreading the ashes as a fertilizer.

And I can tell you, by spreading those with a shovel, I could see the little pieces of bones, which even in the crematoria, it couldn't burn completely.

And this was very difficult on me, 'til today I still live with this.

- [Cetewayo] She gave me a kick in the butt, 'cause I have a tendency of pity parties, and they tried to exterminate her whole race, and she made it.

- [Sonia] what that injury was when he was beating me up.

- And by her making it, I know now, I can make it.

I can make it out.

- She got a number tattooed on her.

Look, this number's on my shirt.

She, they tattooed a number on her, and when I seen that, it made me say, "Yeah."

I never knew that I would see and meet somebody like that.

- We have to come to this understanding, it is what you are inside, not to judge you how you look, or what is your religion, but as a person.

What a person you are.

- Experience is everything.

I mean, it takes people who've been through something to reach people who are going through something.

I mean, it's some people who go out and do crazy things, hurt others, because they're hurting, and they don't think that things will get better for them.

And when you say, "Whoa," and you look at her and you see things are good for her now, that might give you the courage to say, you know, "I'm not gonna do what I was thinking about doing."

- How do you find forgiveness?

- Forgiveness is a very important act in normal life, but I came to conclusion myself, there are some borders in forgiveness.

What I have seen, people dying, hanging and burning, children, sometimes from the pile where they burned outside the people, half bodies burned, I cannot even begin to tell you.

Who am I to say that I forgive?

No.

This has to come from a higher place, from a different place.

But, forgiveness should be practiced.

Try to put love in your heart.

Try to help others.

You become like a different person.

- I see the parole board in six months or so, and hopefully I'll be getting a chance to contribute something.

And (sighs) maybe turning some of that around, yeah.

- I hope that all of you in time will be in freedom, but in a freedom, never to come back to this place.

Even, like I say, it's still not the worst.

I already mentioned to you.

(laughing) - [CJ] I wanna thank you, Sonia, for coming here.

Because you've touched not only me but a lot of these guys in here.

But you've given me more strength after 32 years of being in here.

It makes me wanna stay, to get out of here.

So I appreciate you coming in here.

Thank you.

- [Sonia] Yeah, I'm really, really elated to be with you.

(group clapping) - I can never, ever, ever complain about anything in my life again.

- Oh, may God bless you.

- Ever, thank you so, so, so much.

- I just want to thank you for coming.

- I've been incarcerated for 32 years, and nothing can be compared to that at all.

Watching your mother go through the gas chamber.

It would kill me just, if my mother died, while I was in here.

I don't think I could deal with it.

So, she's a lot tougher than I am.

(chuckles) (sniffs) Man.

Sonia, I gotta give you a hug.

- Good to meet you.

- Thank you.

- It's okay, it's okay.

- I appreciate it.

- [Sonia] I am very thrilled myself.

- You can come back anytime, okay.

- Oh, thank you.

Don't lose your hope.

- I won't.

How can you now - Stay strong.

That's right.

- All right, thank you again.

- If I made it, you will make it too.

- That's right.

- It let's let you know, strong things don't come in the biggest packages.

You can be very small but extremely strong, man.

(solemn music) - In the winter of 1944, my mom was forced on a death march from Auschwitz to the notorious Bergen-Belsen death camp.

And this brings us to how the war ended for my mom.

When British troops approached her camp, and what happened between her and an SS guard on her last day of captivity.

They're relating to it.

And they're thinking about themselves, and their families.

And so, I feel an obligation now.

And it's an obligation that I'm glad to do now.

And honestly, I feel privileged.

(sighs) I really feel privileged to, (sniffs) that I can do this, you know?

It means a lot to me, and I know it means a lot to my mother, and I wish that my father.

Oh, I wish that he, that I had enough interest when he was alive, to do this.

(sniffling) Yeah.

- [Marcie] You and I are speaking on the 70th anniversary of the liberation on one of the camps that you were in, Bergen-Belsen.

- So it was a very sad, it was a happy and a sad day.

(gentle dramatic music) (sirens wailing) On the day of the liberation I was liberated by the English.

(tanks rumbling) - People could hear, the prisoners could hear and feel the ground vibrating.

They could hear the tanks coming closer and closer.

They knew this was liberation.

So of course they were all starving, they ran to the kitchen area, where my mother was working.

There were still a couple of SS guards around.

And the guards were trying to stop them and as they were shooting.

(guns banging) - The bullet came in right here, a centimeter from my heart, and it came though the other side, close from my lungs.

And then, two other girls, from the same bullet were also wounded.

But I was the most seriously wounded.

And I, at the moment when the bullet came in, I did not realize what is happening to me until the blood was start coming.

Then I knew, that I'm dying.

So this was a terrible experience just to see in the day of the liberation, after so much struggle.

(somber music) But I made it.

(gentle bright music) (upbeat music) - [Regina] She survived years in the dead mall at Metcalf South.

Now she's in the dead office building and she's thriving.

- Ready, ready.

What shall I say?

Thank you so much.

I have another vase.

Look at you, I cannot believe it.

- Sonia, I'm so glad you are here.

- [Sonia] Thank you, thank you.

- We literally are in the basement, I mean, there are windows on one side.

And the customers are finding her, they're coming, they're telling their friends about her.

Yeah, that's my mom.

(bright music) - Sonia obviously affects a lot of people and when she talks to people, they say they wanna do something about it and they wanna go make a change in the world.

But I felt that it was important that I actually did something instead of just talking about it.

(gentle bright music) So my name is Caroline Kennedy.

I'm from Kansas City and I just graduated from high school.

So I met Sonia when I was in eighth grade and her story completely changed my life and completely changed my outlook on what I wanna do.

Her one individual story was all it took to inspire me to go and start this organization.

That's really the whole idea.

Because one person has the power to impact one person, has the power to impact one person, and it's a huge chain reaction.

I mean, if you think about it, Sonia coming to my school, it had an impact on all of you now.

And so maybe me coming to your school will have an impact on other people in the future.

(birds chirping)