OPTIMUM TELEVISION

Prisoner of Her Past

Sonia Reich was barely nine when she witnessed the execution of 12,000 Jews in easternmost Poland. She was among 100 odd people who escaped.

Sixty years on, the childhood trauma has returned to haunt her. Now settled in US, Sonia is perennially terrified that the world is out to kill her. Her son, Howard, now undertakes an arduous journey across US and Eastern Europe to find out why her mother feels this way. Along the way he meets his family that he never knew existed.

A brilliant film by Gordon Quinn, Kartemquin Films, on the little known medical problem: late-onset Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a phenomenon that brings the long buried traumas back to life.

Episodic Synopsis available here