The Dressmakers Of Auschwitz by Lucy Adlington

Author:Lucy Adlington
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton
Published: 2021-07-19T17:00:00+00:00

8

Out of Ten Thousand Women

Out of the ten thousand women in Birkenau, there were definitely at least five hundred good seamstresses, but if they didn’t have any contacts, they didn’t have any luck

– Bracha Berkovič

‘Your number’s up’ – an expression easily used in everyday conversation.

For a prisoner in the concentration camp system, being singled out by number could be the final step before the end. One day in early summer 1943, Irene Reichenberg’s number was called – 2786.

Standing out from the crowd usually meant trouble at the best of times, far better not to draw the attention of the SS guards, yet Irene heard her number and stepped forward, expecting the worst. What did she care about her fate? She was still mourning the deaths of her three sisters, Frieda, Jolli and Edith; still courting the idea of death as an escape.

Irene was sent to the Birkenau administration offices, situated alongside the now-infamous brick entrance to the camp. Here she was stripped, assessed by doctors and asked, ‘What is your profession?’

‘Dressmaker,’ she replied.

This simple answer saved her life, and her sanity.

Irene had been chosen to join a select group of seamstresses in the new fashion salon established in Auschwitz by Hedwig Höss. It was called the Obere Nähstube, or Upper Tailoring Studio. Irene had been picked not because she was the most skilled, or most experienced in her field, but because she was related by marriage to the salon’s superb new kapo, Marta Fuchs. (Irene’s brother Laci had married Marta’s sister Turulka.) Marta told the SS woman in charge of the salon – SS Rapportführerin Ruppert – that there were too many orders for clothes and not enough workers.

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