If you’re at all interested in fashion, clothing, or sewing, and their relationship with history, this book is for you. Or, if instead you like reading about World War II, this book presents an intriguing side of the conflict I knew nothing about prior to reading it. The Dressmakers of Auschwitz follows the lives of a group of seamstresses who find safety in the Upper Tailoring Studio of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where they sew clothing for the wives and families of highly ranked Nazi officials. Along with telling the true stories of these brave and talented women, this book provides a lot of knowledge on how the Third Reich’s choices impacted the European fashion scene, and the global clothing industry as a whole. Like any historical nonfiction, this book requires attention while reading, but I found its fresh and thoroughly researched contents absolutely fascinating and well worth a read.- Alexis, twelfth-grade teen volunteer
Publisher's description:
A powerful chronicle of the women who used their sewing skills to survive the Holocaust, stitching beautiful clothes at an extraordinary fashion workshop created within one of the most notorious WWII death camps. At the height of the Holocaust twenty-five young inmates of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp—mainly Jewish women and girls—were selected to design, cut, and sew beautiful fashions for elite Nazi women in a dedicated salon. It was work that they hoped would spare them from the gas chambers. This fashion workshop—called the Upper Tailoring Studio—was established by Hedwig Höss, the camp commandant’s wife, and patronized by the wives of SS guards and officers. Here, the dressmakers produced high-quality garments for SS social functions in Auschwitz, and for ladies from Nazi Berlin’s upper crust. Drawing on diverse sources—including interviews with the last surviving seamstress—the book follows the fates of these brave women. Their bonds of family and friendship not only helped them endure persecution, but also to play their part in camp resistance. Weaving the dressmakers’ remarkable experiences within the context of Nazi policies for plunder and exploitation, historian Lucy Adlington exposes the greed, cruelty, and hypocrisy of the Third Reich and offers a fresh look at a little-known chapter of World War II and the Holocaust.