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

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-8

Chapters 9-11

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Themes

The Politics of Clothing

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.

Clothing was also political on an individual level. Among other examples of clothing’s ability to establish hierarchy, the book offers the Nazi uniform. Stressing that one aim of any uniform is “to bond the group together,” Adlington notes that uniforms also “[minimize] obvious differences between different classes, giving the impression of equality within the entire group” (45). The Nazi uniform in particular—with its notorious swastika prominent—presented an air of assertive, authoritative power. Images of the swastika permeated all aspects of German society, its ubiquity no accident. Nevertheless, clothing also reinforced hierarchies within German society. While ordinary citizens suffered clothing shortages as the war got underway, Nazi party officials and their wives were not subject to rationing. That the women especially continued to don the latest fashions is further proof of how clothing both reflects and creates class distinctions and stereotypes.

As Jews were rounded up, the Nazis confiscated their clothing alongside other possessions, cataloguing and storing it at Kanada warehouses to be redistributed and resold. The loss of clothing at the concentration camp signified much more than a loss of wealth; for Jews and other prisoners, clothing represented their humanity. Adlington notes how significantly the morale of the seamstresses was improved when they were allowed to wear actual dresses. Upon survivors’ exodus from the camps, obtaining new clothing to replace their tattered rags was a top priority. That several Holocaust museums display the stolen clothing and shoes of the camps’ victims is a reminder of the symbolic nature of these necessary items.

Solidarity and Alliances: Tools of Survival

Despite their status as prisoners, many Auschwitz inmates were unwilling to passively submit to Hitler’s death sentence. Relationships formed before and during imprisonment were often key to such resistance efforts. Underground networks developed in the early days of the war whereby passing Jews and their allies smuggled money and possessions to Jews in hiding or those who were in the process of being displaced. Family members and friends instinctively stayed together for as long as possible during the transport to the camps and the subsequent processing upon arrival. Hans and Ruth Ringer, a couple whom Hunya knew, happened to arrive via the same train. As men and women were separated, Hans advised his wife to “[s]tick together with Hunya,” explaining he had “a feeling she [would] make it” (110).

As illustrated here and throughout the book, “everyone for themself” was rarely the motto of Auschwitz prisoners. It quickly became clear that friends, family, or even casual acquaintances would be vital for survival. Were it not for their connection to Marta Fuchs, the seamstresses of the Upper Tailoring Salon might have perished in the camp. Adlington stresses that Marta employed not the best seamstresses in the camp, but rather those women she either knew directly or had ties to. On a more day-to-day level, friends actively encouraged one another not to give in to despair, as Bracha did when Irene was considering suicide.

Chapter 9 explores the more active resistance of key figures like Marta Fuchs and stresses the role solidarity played in such efforts. The Kanada warehouses facilitated the exchanging of goods and information to thwart SS efforts, furnishing clothing and papers for escape attempts as well as forbidden news of Allied war efforts. Likewise, smaller-scale resistance (such as the intentional clogging of the SS toilets with fabric and thread from the tailoring studio) was only possible because of solidarity; none of the women were willing to betray the others.

Adlington suggests that such alliances had immeasurable benefits to prisoners’ morale and sense of self-worth. The ability to trust a fellow human undoubtedly undid a bit of the demeaning and dehumanizing damage done by SS officers and kapos. As a testament to this, several survivors credited friends as the reason for their survival.

The Identity of Work: Slavery or Survival?

The book’s opening chapters establish that textile and related industries were a source of both success and pride for numerous Jewish families. However, their hard work and talent were exactly what Nazis sought to exploit. As Jews were rounded up, they were given the impression that they were being sent to “work camps.” While labor was the central purpose of inmates who passed “selection,” the phrase “work camp” belies not only the genocide that was taking place but also the forced nature of the work. Importantly, Auschwitz became an industrial complex that generated war funding and profit for the Nazi leaders. Upon a visit by Heinrich Himmler, Rudolf Höss bragged of the talents of the camp’s “diamond cutters, lens grinders, toolmakers and watchmakers, […] builders, bricklayers, electricians, carpenters, and locksmiths” (141).

The book stresses the brutal nature of the slave labor Jews and other prisoners were forced to endure under threat of death. Work hours were long and conditions unbearable; many tasks were physically excruciating and assigned to inmates who were ill-equipped to perform them. SS officials went to great lengths to create a façade of humane treatment to the outside world. For example, Adlington describes the building that the seamstresses were moved to upon their transfer as “superiorly luxurious by Auschwitz standards,” explaining that “such symbols of civilization were decidedly not for the inmates’ benefit: the camp extension was designed as a showcase for inspections by the International Red Cross, to ‘prove’ Auschwitz was not a horror camp” (248).

Rudolf Höss perpetuated the myth of the camp’s purpose with the motto emblazoned above the Auschwitz entry: Arbeit Macht Frei or “Work Makes You Free.” Adlington explains Höss’s conception of the sign as conveyed in his memoir: “Having been a prisoner himself during the 1920s, […] he had experienced the loss of self-esteem and motivation that enforced idleness could cause” (214). The cruel irony of the motto is unmistakable: It claimed that prisoners could earn freedom through hard work, while in truth death was the only escape. Further, such work aided the Nazi war effort and thus perpetuated inmates’ own imprisonment. Yet the motto contained a grain of truth, at least for the short term. Early in their time at Auschwitz, the seamstresses and others realized that work would keep them alive “for a while,” whereas anyone considered a “useless mouth” would be killed immediately.

For the women of the Upper Tailoring Studio, seamstress work featured prominently in their lives before, during, and after their imprisonment at Auschwitz. This further complicated these women’s relationship to work in the camp, as the salon gave them the chance to reclaim a bit of their identity. Before the war, sewing was a means for a woman to support herself in keeping with gender norms. The book’s early chapters portray women of intelligence, talent, and drive as they undertake careers in dressmaking and tailoring. When the Studio opened and Marta Fuchs used her influence, these women were indeed receiving an opportunity to live. In this way, work became a double-edged sword. It restored humanity and purpose to the women while providing camaraderie and significant alliances that would prove essential to survival. Yet, as Adlington notes, many of the women also experienced heightened survivor’s guilt following the war, knowing that their labor benefited Nazis and aided in Hitler’s plan of mass destruction of Jews.