survivors, finale

In 1939, three-quarters of the residents of Miedzyrzec, Poland – about 18,000 people – were Jewish. Not more than 300 survived the Holocaust. When Sonia was a child there, the Jews in Miedzyrzec had an orphanage, a home for the elderly, youth organizations, Hebrew schools and a private secondary school. A few Jews were allowed to attend university, but they were required to stand for lectures. After Sonia was taken to the concentration camps, she dreamed, “God, why don’t you turn me into a little bird and let me be free?” In the chaos preceding her liberation at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Sonia was shot in the chest. Not quite 18, she recovered and met John Warshawski. They married in 1946 and came to Kansas City a year later. John operated a tailor shop; Sonia worked as a salesperson. John died in 1989, but Sonia still works there. She has three children. “I always felt a special strength for my children,” she says. “And that kept me going.”


One of five Jewish families in Zabno, Croatia, the Bergls owned 300 acres planted in wheat and an orchard of 4,000 trees. Zdenko’s father managed the family’s grocery store, brick factory and lumber mill. By 1936, Zdenko’s parents were boycotting German products. He was disappointed on his 10th birthday when he got a Kodak Brownie camera instead of a Leica. Shortly after the German occupation of Croatia, the Bergls fled to Italy where, with the help of a priest, they obtained forged papers. Zdenko has visited Croatia several times since the war. The best visit was in 1972, when he shipped his Cadillac overseas and drove it into Zabno. “People came from all over and said: ‘we cleaned you Jews out. How do you do it?’” Zdenko told them: “When you come to America and tell them you’re Jewish, your fellow Jews give you a key for a new house and a key for a new car. And they believed it!”


Ida was raised in Krakow, Poland with four sisters and a brother. Her family lived in a large apartment with electricity and running water. It was filled with nice furniture and crystals Ida’s father brought back from his travels. A maid helped with the laundry and cleaning three times a week. With six children, her mother cooked most of the day. “Everything fresh – fresh bread form the bakery every day,” Ida recalls. “When I was young, I was very spoiled and my mother had to buy little breakfast cakes for me.” Ida’s parents valued education. But it was a struggle. In public school, Ida could not get an “A” in Polish because she was Jewish. Gentile children threw stones. In high school, she worked particularly hard. “They would kick Jews out for no reason,” she remembers. Ida was liberated from concentration camps and met her husband in Germany. They immigrated to Kansas City in 1957. “Survivors, we keep very close,” she says. “We are different. We are not happy people.”