The Dressmakers of Auschwitz: The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive

Content Warning: This section references acts of racism and violence that occurred during the Holocaust, as well as suicidal ideation.

The book’s primary focus is on the Upper Tailoring Studio and the seamstresses whose lives were arguably saved because of it. While much of the narrative details the events leading up to, during, and after the seamstresses’ time at Auschwitz, this serves the book’s goal of preserving the studio’s little-known existence and its political significance.

Adlington stresses the importance of clothes in establishing identity as she describes the youth of key figures. Clothing was a means by which Jewish families conveyed their respectability and social class. Young women like Bracha, Katka, Irene, and Hunya took pride in dressing in a way that depicted them as intelligent and capable. Many of the book’s key figures had familial ties to the textile industry, which is not a coincidence: Jewish dominance of the textile and fashion industries throughout Europe led to both wealth and prestige, which the Nazi regime worked to tear down. Importantly, Nazis sought not merely to destroy these businesses but to completely co-opt them so that they possessed the ensuing profits. The Nazi Party needed to finance its war efforts, and World War I had left Germany economically devastated.