THE DRESSMAKERS OF AUSCHWITZ

The tale of surviving the “hideous anomaly” of a fashion salon run by Hedwig Höss, the commandant’s wife.

Adlington, a British fashion historian, digs into the stories of “seamstresses who defied Nazi attempts to dehumanise and degrade them by forming the most incredible bonds of friendship and loyalty.” The author, who fictionalized this material in her young adult novel, The Red Ribbon, continues, “as needles were threaded and sewing machines whirred they made plans for resistance, and even escape.” Adlington emphasizes the importance of clothing in the making of the Nazi Aryan mystique, from the brownshirts to the swastika to the folk garments that Jews were prohibited from wearing to the high fashion that Nazi wives demanded. Several of the young seamstresses came from Bratislava, the products of devout families, and many went to school together during the 1930s as antisemitic rhetoric heated up. One of the young women, Marta Fuchs, was a trained cutter who moved to Prague in the late 1930s to pursue her dream of haute couture. At the same time, Jewish firms were increasingly subject to Aryanization. “The main goal of Aryanisation went far beyond simply causing distress and hardship,” writes the author. “The prize…was actual ownership of Jewish businesses, as well as elimination of competition.” Ultimately, Fuchs and the other women and their families were transported to labor and death camps. At Auschwitz, Höss established a salon near her villa, run largely by Fuchs, called the Upper Tailoring Studio. Fuchs incorporated in the team of seamstresses her friends and acquaintances as a way to save them from punishing labor and certain death in the gas chambers. Adlington poignantly delineates how closely clothing and dignity were linked, especially in the camps, where the women were denuded and deloused mercilessly. The author also clearly shows the sickening insouciance with which Nazi wives would plunder the camp warehouse, crammed with stolen clothes and possessions from the enslaved workers.

A fresh, moving Auschwitz survival story involving a remarkable group of women.