‘BIG SONIA’ SPECIAL SCREENING


Sunday, April 22, 2018
12:30 p.m. Brunch Reception
2 p.m. Film Screening and Q&A

The White Theatre in the Jewish Community Center
5801 W. 115th St.,
Leawood, KS 66211



Back by popular demand, the Truman Library Institute has added a second screening for the popular film Big Sonia, after a capacity crowd at our last screening.

Standing tall at 4’8”, Sonia is one of the last remaining Holocaust survivors in Kansas City and one of the only local survivors who speaks publicly about her experience during the Holocaust. Her enormous personality and fragile frame mask the horrors she endured. Sonia’s teenage years were a blur of concentration camps and death marches, and at 15 she watched her mother disappear behind gas chamber doors. On liberation day, she was accidentally shot through the chest, and yet again miraculously survived. Sonia is the ultimate survivor, a bridge between cultures and generations.

The critically-acclaimed film Big Sonia interweaves Sonia’s past and present using first-person narrative with stories from family and friends. Along the way, we learn valuable life lessons – “Soniaisms” – from a woman who can barely see over the steering wheel, yet insists on driving herself to work six days a week to run her late husband’s tailor shop, John’s Tailoring. Her influence spans generations and cultures, and this documentary allows all of us to hear her story.

Join us for a special screening of this popular film on April 22 at 2 p.m. The screening will be preceded by a free brunch reception where you can meet Sonia Warshawski herself. Immediately following the film will be a Q&A session with Sonia’s daughter Regina Kort, Sonia’s granddaughter and the film’s producer/co-director Leah Warshawski and co-director Todd Soliday.

This program is co-presented by the Truman Library Institute and Buchbinder, Stolper & Swanson Investment Group at Stifel (Herbert Buchbinder, Managing Director/Stifel Investments; Daniel Stolper, Senior Vice President/Stifel Investments; Mary Travis-Swanson, Senior Vice President/Stifel Investments; Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated/Member SIPC & NYSE/ 4600 Madison Ave #1200, Kansas City, MO 64112).

The program is offered free of charge, but  <https://12130.thankyou4caring.org/events/2018--big-sonia-second-film-screening> RSVPs are required.