Lou Reed interviews his cousin, Shirley Novick (Shulamit Rabinowitz), on the eve of her 100th birthday. Shirley recalls growing up in a small village in Poland during World War I; fleeing to the United States by way of Canada during World War II and losing her parents to the Nazis; toiling for 47 years in New York City's garment district, where she became a labor activist; reuniting with her sisters, who had emigrated to Palestine; and taking part in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.