Lucy Adlington - The Dressmakers of Auschwitz

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 Dressmakers of Auschwitz 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.

Comment: I got this book at the library. No specific reason why, but I will say that I thought it would be a fiction story. It wasn't, but I still had a good reading experience.

During the Holocaust, several women prisoners at Auschwitz, mainly, have been tasked with sewing fancy clothes for the Nazi wives and other women. This was an idea by the camp managers, especially Hedwig Hoss, the wife of the officer in charge. In an attempt to save their lives, several girls accepted this task, even if that meant living with the hypocrisy of doing something for those who called them animals. Lucy Adlington has reunited evidence about what these girls were doing and was lucky to be able to speak to the last seamstress who survived, which was the main base for this work. All tales from the Second World War are despairing, and this is no exception, but it does have some friendship moments the girls shared...

Reading this book was easy, in the sense that the author wanted to convey information in a way that would allow the reader to focus on the task the girls were doing, and not only on where they were. Still, the book documents, as in a more accessible way (as opposed to a traditional scientific or academic text and language) the journey from the early persecutions of the Jew to what it all meant when they were told they would be sent to work and promised a return.

The chapters are divided into a chronological fashion so that we can follow the girls in what was happening to them. One can say a lot of the information had already been given in many other books, fictional and not, but the author used mostly the memories of Bracha, one of the girls who survived the camp and who went on to live in the US. My favorite part of the book were the photographs included, most of them owned and shared by Bracha, and due to the 30s and 40s style of photographing, it seemed they were all just regular people and this is what is truly scary. Anyone suffering or anyone causing that suffering can seem very "normal".

It was also interesting the focus on the dressmakers. Some of the girls mentioned already had interest in fashion and clothes before they were sent to the camps and it was satisfying to see them showing everyone how skilled and clever they were, even at such a high price.... I should say that the story does focus on a few girls more than in others and I assume that, since Bracha, the person the author spoke with, had better knowledge of some (even photographs), the correspondent amount of information applies.

Although the book is told in an non fiction style, the author sometimes offers commentary and the "tale" is written in a more simplistic way. Despite this, the author has plenty of reference books at the end, and many footnotes, which sometimes refer to some work or another. I will assume again that this is as a valid project as any other more academic presentation, but with a language that makes it easier for the common reader. If one had already read about the WWII theme, many things might seem repetitive or cumulative, but the context is informative.

Obviously, Bracha survived, as did others, and the final chapters about how they left the camp after it was released and what happened to them in the aftermath were rather bittersweet. It's true the focus is more on some girls than others, but they all were victims, all were real people and it certainly feels unfair what they went through. I will share that I did cry a little bit in the end, simply because, due to age alone, Bracha has died before the author published this book. Lucy Adlington shares something Bracha had said and it made me think that life is really short and sometimes we don't know how our life might affect someone else... how a word or a look might impact us.

Another interesting aspect often mentioned was how exactly the Nazi women requesting the clothes outside of the camp, and even Hedwig Hoss herself, knew about what was happening and what it meant. I still don't feel convinced they could claim they didn't know...

Anyway, perhaps this book is too specific and doesn't approach all the necessary elements to make it a more reliable text for what it meant to live in Auschwitz, but it did teach me some new things. I ended up not minding this wasn't fiction...

Grade: 7/10