'Whenever you see injustices at all, you have to speak up'

JUDY WOODRUFF: Next, we turn to another installment of our weekly Brief But Spectacular series.
Tonight, in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we hear from 84-year-old
Reva Kibort of Minneapolis.
Originally from Poland, Kibort spent two years imprisoned at the Demblin concentration camp.
She survived the war, while many of her family, including her parents and sister, didn't.
REVA KIBORT, Holocaust Survivor: I was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1933.
I remember when the Germans came in, and, actually, the soldiers, they weren't so bad.
We lined up in lines to get food.
They gave us soup and bread.
And that was my first memory of the German soldiers.
They were not that bad.
But we learned later on what it was going to be like.
The Warsaw ghetto, toward the end, looked like people walking around like zombies, dead
bodies, people who had starved from hunger.
It was the most devastating place to live in.
They took away everybody's dignity, you know?
I was very, very hungry, and I told my mother that I was hungry.
And she said to me -- she said: "Reva, I have nothing to give you.
There's nothing to eat.
What you should do is take this big rubber ball and go out and play, and you will forget
that you're hungry."
We were put on trains and taken to a camp called Demblin.
There were 11 children in the camp.
I was the oldest among the 11.
And then there was this German who said to me, "Throw the child away," because I was
holding a six-month-old little baby.
I ran into the dirty clothing that the women had taken off, a pile of dirty clothes, and
I could see that the same German took a machine gun and killed all 11 children right in front
of me while I was watching them.
I ran into the women's barrack, and the women sort of attacked me, saying: "Where are all
the kids?
What happened to the children?"
And I said, "I don't know."
I believe they probably knew.
I didn't have to tell them.
I was one of the youngest in my camp.
I survived when I was 12.
And I feel, if I'm not going to speak out now, it will be up to my children, and my
grandchildren, and maybe great-grandchildren to tell the story of the Holocaust.
So, we have to speak up.
Whenever you see injustices at all, you have to speak up.
It bothers me a great deal when I see somebody who is hungry.
It bothers me if I see a homeless person.
It bothers me when I see people standing in line for food, because all these things come
back to me all the time.
QUESTION: Are you angry?
REVA KIBORT: Am I angry?
I'm angry.
I will tell you why I'm angry.
I'm angry mostly because I was an orphan.
They deprived me of my mother and father.
They deprived me of grandparents, of cousins.
They deprived me of a childhood that I never had.
Yes, I'm angry.
But, at the same time, I'm also very happy that I'm here in America, and for the opportunities
that I had and what America had given to me.
I'm very happy about that.
My name is Reva Kibort, and this is my Brief But Spectacular take on being a survivor.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Reva, thank you.
And that's why it is so important that we remember.
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'Whenever you see injustices at all, you have to speak up'

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