After reading A Vintage Affair, I began reading this. The Seamstress- A Memoir of Survival is not a new book, it was published in 1999. The subject caught my eye, a true life account of a seamstress during the Holocaust. It’s certainly not an uplifting story although the themes of hope and survival are prevalent.
Here is the synopsis, from Amazon:
A striking Holocaust memoir, posthumously published, by a Romanian Jew with an unusual story to tell. From its opening pages, in which she recounts her own premature birth, triggered by terrifying rumors of an incipient pogrom, Bernstein’s tale is clearly not a typical memoir of the Holocaust. She was born into a large family in rural Romania between the wars and grew up feisty and willing to fight back physically against anti-Semitism from other schoolchildren.
She defied her father’s orders to turn down a scholarship that took her to Bucharest, and got herself expelled from that school when she responded to a priest/teacher’s vicious diatribe against the Jews by hurling a bottle of ink at him. Ashamed to return home after her expulsion, she looked for work in Bucharest and discovered a talent for dressmaking. That talent–and her blond hair, blue eyes, and overall Gentile appearance–allowed her entry into the highest reaches of Romanian society, albeit as a dressmaker. Bernstein recounts the growing shadow of the native fascist movement, the Iron Guard, a rising tide of anti-Semitic laws, and finally, the open persecution of Romania’s Jews.
After a series of incidents that ranged from dramatic escapes to a year in a forced labor detachment, Sara ended up in Ravensbrck, a women’s concentration camp deep in Germany. Nineteen out of every twenty women transported there died. The author, her sister Esther, and two other friends banded together and, largely due to Sara’s extraordinary street smarts and intuition, managed to survive. Although Bernstein was not a professional writer, she tells this story with style and power. Her daughter Marlene contributes a moving epilogue to close out Sara’s life. One of the best of the recent wave of Holocaust memoirs.
This book was really, really good. I think its important to learn about this time in history although I admit, reading certain parts gave me nightmares, I couldn’t sleep and my imagination worked overtime. Learning the details of what the people went through boggles my mind- the cruelty that the Jews endured made me cry. Parts of the book were very difficult to get through but I’m glad I read it.
Are you a history buff who is interested in the Holocaust? Get this book immediately!
Ever since I was little, I wanted to be a writer. I’ve put in many years of hard work and I look forward to the day when I finally get an agent and a book deal and all five of the novels I have written are out in the world!
