Sonia’s Story: The Power of Bearing Witness

Sonia’s Story: The Power of Bearing Witness

The Butterfly Project’s Education Team, led by Founder Jan Landau, comprises retired educators and second-generation Holocaust Survivors. Every year, they visit schools across San Diego and beyond, sharing personal stories and the lessons of the Holocaust.

Sonia Fox-Ohlbaum, a founding Education Team member, is a former educator and the daughter of two Holocaust survivors. She never expected to be doing this work for over a decade, but when asked what keeps her engaged in The Butterfly Project, she recalls one of her earliest classroom visits.

The teacher had confided in Sonia before the presentation that several students in her class had recently bullied one of their Jewish classmates by using antisemitic gestures. Sonia didn’t know while giving her talk which students had done the bullying, but after she spoke, she saw a young boy crying in his seat. The teacher’s nod confirmed—he was one of them.

Pulling him gently aside, she asked, “Did we say something that was very hurtful or painful to you?”

The boy looked up. He said, “I didn’t know this was real.”

This moment took place years ago, yet it remains a powerful example of why The Butterfly Project is needed in today’s classrooms. In the fall of 2024, teachers reported swastikas scrawled on desks and in bathroom stalls, hateful language spoken carelessly in their classrooms, and students of all ages, races, and religions being targeted for their identities. No one program can erase these issues, but personal stories like Sonia’s have a unique power.

They can turn ignorance into understanding, and shape indifference into empathy.

When Sonia visits a classroom, she always brings her father’s striped uniform–a remnant from his own life in a concentration camp. The moment she unfolds it, silence fills the room. 

“I let the students touch it,” she says. “I tell them, ‘You are now the witnesses. If someone ever denies the Holocaust, you met four women whose parents survived. You touched a uniform that belongs in a museum.’”

Educators share how deeply these lessons resonate. A teacher in California said her students were “deeply moved” by hearing our Education Team’s stories and painting butterflies in remembrance of a child who was murdered. A teacher in New York reflected, 

“Even though I work with kids every day, I forget how many have never heard about the Holocaust. Their wide eyes and great questions give me chills. This small experience will stay with them forever.”

Why does this work matter?

Over and over, the answer is clear to Sonia: so that history isn’t forgotten. So students recognize their own power and responsibility to stand up for what’s right. So they choose to be kind, over and over again, even–and especially–when the choice to be kind is difficult to make.

Through The Butterfly Project, stories like Sonia’s connect the past to the present. By sharing these stories and participating in acts of remembrance, we are all able to bear witness to the Holocaust. In doing so, we ensure that these lessons belong not just to the past–but to us all.