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Home » Survivors » Sonia Schreiber Weitz » "The Way I See It" by Mark Arnold

The Way I See It

By Mark Arnold

Sonia Weitz Strives to Make a Difference

I’ve been struck recently by the realization that when the current generation of Holocaust survivors dies, not many years from now, there will no longer be first-hand reports on the Holocaust.

Does it make a difference?

We can experience the Holocaust vicariously, of course — through thousands of books, many of them eyewitness accounts; through vivid, heart-wrenching movies such as Schindler’s List, through photo exhibits; art work, by kids and adults; and by television documentaries. But hearing the stories from who lived through it — is it really different?

That was one of the three questions on my mind the other day when I paid a visit to Austin Prep School in Reading to hear the life story of Sonia Weitz, retold — for perhaps her thousandth time — to 100 Catholic junior high students.

I was there to watch the reaction of the students —all seventh and eighth graders — to Sonia’s tale. How, I wondered, would Catholic kids, 12 to14 years old — consumed with television, baseball, and the seductive sights and sounds of summer — react to an experience so foreign to their own?

That was my second question.

Weitz is a trim and tiny dynamo, with straight pulled-back hair and dangling earrings, a self-depracating sense of humor and a fiery sense of social justice. More than 50 years ago, she was just entering her teens when she and her sister Blanca, two years older, were plucked from their home in Cracow, Poland, in and sent to the first of five concentration camps on a meandering voyage that almost killed them. Of 84 members of her extended family, only Blanca and herself lived to tell the tale.

After the video, she talked – about a secure middle-class life at home before the year; about life in the camps, about suffering from dysentery, the smell of burning bodies, seeing dogs tear people’s limbs, a body swinging from a tree, about 16 days in a sealed cattle car, about living on snow or raw potatoes, and about the infamous winter death march where you tripped over the fallen bodies of those who couldn’t take the cold or the hunger.

Then came the questions. “Why don’t you have a tattoo on your arm?” “In Poland we had identity cards instead.” “How did the Nazis know you were Jewish?” “The identity cards included your religion.” “Why didn’t your family escape to Israel?” “There was no Israel then.” “What was the toughest part of growing up without parents?” “Growing up without parents.” “Is the word ‘Jew’ offensive?” “Not unless used in a defamatory way.” “Were any soldiers nice to you?” “I don’t remember a single act of human kindness from soldiers or guards, including the women; one of the women beat me.” “Did you ever want to die?” “Yes, but I always believed, and you should too, that tomorrow will be a better day.”

The kids were quiet, intent. You could see them struggling to process this information, relate it to things they knew. Here was someone who had plumbed the deaths of hell at their own age – and survived to talk about it. And to spread hope. She warned against being a bystander, urging the kids to speak up against playground bullies, bigots, and anyone making ethnic slurs. “That’s how it starts,” she said, “by not speaking up when you know something is wrong. “If you care,” she concluded, “you can make it better.”

My third question: Will her talk make a difference in their lives? It’s impossible to know. But I’ll wager these kids will never forget their encounter with this brave, articulate woman whose inner strength helped her survive the Holocaust and whose personal mission it is to bring its lessons to anyone who will listen.

Instead of an honorarium, Sonia always asks that contributions be sent to the Holocaust Center North, 82 Main Street, Peabody, MA 01960, of which she is a co-founder, with Harriet Wacks, its executive director.

Her presentation began with a 22-minute videotaped interview, in which she matter-of-factly recounts the story of her life up until 1945. She also reads some of her poems, kept in a diary that was destroyed by the Nazis, recreated from memory after the war. The poems are shattering, particularly the one about how she sneaked into the men’s barracks at one camp, found her father and for what she knew would be the last time she saw him, the two danced to the strains of music from a youth playing a harmonica.