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. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Fashion historian Adlington brings new research to many decades of Holocaust studies with this history of the women inmates at Auschwitz-Birkenau who were made to tailor clothes and sew high fashion for Nazi Party elites. Some two dozen women were spared from the death camp's gas chambers because they could sew, Adlington writes. She interviews one of the survivors; details how the talented seamstresses came by their skills; and explains how sewing ultimately saved their lives in the concentration camp and after the war. The book gives a solid overall impression of life in Auschwitz-Birkenau (including how hierarchies were formed and how prisoners coped), and relays insights about high-ranking Nazi officers and their families, especially their wives who also benefitted from and profited off the work of the imprisoned seamstresses. Adlington posits the importance of clothing among both guards and inmates, in a rich historical narrative that relies on extensive primary sources and includes archival photographs of some of its subjects. VERDICT This book's staggering accounts of inhumanity can be difficult to read, but the incredible stories of Holocaust survivors and the lives they built during and after the war are worth it.--Amanda Ray, Iowa City P.L.

Adlington (The Red Ribbon) presents the moving story of an obscure, but especially cruel, story from the Holocaust--the experiences of women who tried to survive the rigors and murderous violence of a Nazi death camp by making use of their talent for making fancy clothes. Hedwig Höss, whose husband Rudolf was in charge of Auschwitz, shared the Nazi elite's desire to wear attractive garments. That led her to create a clothing workshop in the camp, comprised of Jewish and non-Jewish Communist seamstresses, who created beautiful fashions "for the very people who despised them as subversives and subhuman." The clothing workers' experiences are vividly recreated through the author's extensive research, including interviews with Bracha Kohut, the last surviving dressmaker. Kohut, along with her colleagues, had been torn from their normal lives by the Nazis, separated from their loved ones, and forced to witness sadistic acts of cruelty. They persevered in spite of those torments, struggling to employ their needles, thread, and fabric to stay alive one day at a time, while fearing execution if a design did not sufficiently please their "clients." Even those who feel that they've read enough survivor accounts will find themselves surprised and affected. (Sept.)

After all that has been told about the Holocaust, it is both appalling and remarkable that there are newly told stories that can still shock with their cruelty. Author Adlington interviews Bracha Berkovič, the last surviving member of a group of women held at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp who were able to parlay their talents into a tiny bit of safety. Led by Marta Fuchs, the woman who started as a servant in Commandant Rudolf Höss' household, these 25 women, most of whom had appropriate experience, produced high-fashion clothing for the wives and children of the camp's SS hierarchy. Materials came from the possessions taken from the inmates of the camp, and were refashioned to suit the whims of their captors. Despite the horror of the conditions, the women never lost their ability to care for each other, in many instances hiding illnesses and inabilities that might have returned some to the regular population. The author is a historian with a specialty in fashion, and uses illustrations from magazines of the era to great effectiveness. Appropriate for all libraries.