Standing tall at 4’8″, Sonia Warshawski can barely see over the steering wheel , yet, at 89 years of age, this tiny woman with an oversized personality and indomitable spirit still drives herself to work six days a week to run her late husband’s tailor shop – the last shop still open in a dying suburban mall. Sonia, who admits that she stays busy “to keep the dark parts away”, is one of the last remaining Holocaust survivors in Kansas City and has, for years, been speaking at schools, church groups and prisons, where her stories of surviving the Holocaust have inspired and impacted countless numbers of people. Now, with the closure of the mall imminent, Sonia struggles with the looming threat of being forced to close the shop’s doors and having to face retirement. Co-directed by Leah Warshawski (Sonia’s granddaughter) and Todd Soliday, this warm and charming documentary beautifully interweaves the threads of Sonia’s past and present, while also exploring the impact Sonia’s wartime experience has had on her grown children, to offer an affecting portrait of a remarkable woman whose determination to transcend the traumas of the past spans generations and cultures – an uplifting story that is by turns poignant, insightful and laugh-out-loud funny.
