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The Dressmakers of Auschwitz


Lucy Adlington


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.

Lucy Adlington is a British dress historian with more than twenty years' experience researching social history. Adlington runs History Wardrobe, a company which presents costume-in-context talks across the UK. Her non-fiction publications include: Women's Lives and Clothes in WWII: Ready for Action and Stitches in Time - the Story of the Clothes we Wear. Lucy Adlington lives on a farm in Yorkshire.

Category:  History Of Fashion
ISBN:  9781529311983
Publisher:  Hodder & Stoughton
On sale:  September 2022
Format:  Paperback
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