Join British dress historian Lucy Adlington as she presents her deeply powerful and intricately detailed new book, The Dressmakers of Auschwitz. Drawing from eyewitness interviews and original garments from the era, Lucy will present a remarkable tale of resilience, camaraderie and dressmaking, in the most extreme of circumstances.
The Dressmakers of Auschwitz recounts the remarkable story of the 25 young, mainly Jewish women, who were picked from the general population of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, to design, cut and sew beautiful fashions for ‘elite’ Nazi women. The Upper Tailoring Studio, the dedicated salon in which the women worked, 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 class.
Lucy Adlington follows the fates of these brave women and shows how 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 of plunder and exploitation, Lucy Adlington exposes the greed, cruelty, and hypocrisy of the Third Reich, offering a fresh look at a little-known chapter of World War II and the Holocaust.
This is a recording of the online event, The Dressmakers of Auschwitz, which originally took place on Thursday 30 September 2021 via Microsoft Teams.