Inspired by conversations with young trauma survivors in post-Katrina New Orleans, Howard Reich begins to discover a secret that his Ukrainian Jewish mother, Sonia, had kept hidden for over 60 years.

In order to understand his mother's past, Howard Reich travels to Eastern Europe to discover that Sonia spent her adolescence fleeing the Nazis during World War II.

Meeting some of Sonia's distant relatives and childhood friends, Howard begins to unravel what his mother has always refused to speak about.

Having lost most of her family to the Holocaust, Sonia spent five years as a "jungle child", starving and constantly on the run.

Now as Sonia tries to forget her past, Howard attempts to ease her pain and confront the horrors that haunted her.