First published 2021
At Auschwitz-Birkenau, twenty-five Jewish women and girls face an impossible choice. Selected for their needlework abilities, they must create elegant garments for the wives of their captors in the Upper Tailoring Studio. Hedwig Höss, wife of the camp commandant, established this fashion workshop to serve Nazi elite. The seamstresses cut silk and stitch intricate designs, knowing their survival depends on each perfect seam. They sew ball gowns for SS social events while their fellow prisoners march to the gas chambers. Within the studio walls, these women forge bonds of friendship and family that sustain them through unimaginable horror. They find ways to resist their oppressors even as they serve them. Lucy Adlington draws on interviews with survivors to chronicle how these dressmakers used their craft as a lifeline. Their story reveals the complex moral territory of survival under Nazi persecution.
Genres: holocaust, historical-fiction, 20th-century, world-war-ii
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, resistance
Setting: Auschwitz-Birkenau
Period: World War II
381 pages · Paperback · Harper Paperbacks
Content warnings: abuse, death, violence