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her Romanian mountain village. When she won and accepted a scholarship
to a Gentiles-only Gymnasium, she was forced to make a decision that
would change her path forever. At thirteen, faced with a teacher's
anti-Semitism, Seren walked out of her classroom and into a new
existence. She became the apprentice to a seamstress, and her skill with
needle and thread enabled her again and again to patch the fraying
pieces of her life. As the Nazis encircled the country and bombs rained
down, Seren stitched her way to survival, scraping together enough money
to provide for her family. When she, her younger sister Esther, and two
friends were sent to the Ravensbruck concentration camp in Germany, the
four girls became one another's shelter.
Told with the same old-fashioned narrative power as the novels of Herman
Wouk, The Seamstress is the true story of Seren (Sara) Tuvel Bernstein
and her survival during wartime. A story of tragedy told in raw,
powerful language, it is also a dramatic tale of courage, intimate
friendship, romance, and startling good fortune that will have listeners
cheering.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
December 30, 2011 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781452625980
- File size: 354946 KB
- Duration: 12:19:28
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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September 29, 1997
This well-told memoir by the late Bernstein deserves a prominent place in the archive of Holocaust survival stories. Born into a large Jewish Romanian family, Bernstein (1918-83), known then as Seren, left her mountain village at the age of 13 to attend gymnasium in Bucharest. Her independent spirit drove her to leave the anti-Semitic school and become an apprentice to a dressmaker rather than return home. Seren became a well-paid seamstress and assisted her family financially until WWII broke out, when she was sent to a Hungarian labor camp. In 1944, she was transported with her sister and two friends to the Ravensbruck concentration camp. Although one of her friends died, Seren and the other two survived. She vividly recounts SS beatings, frostbite and the starvation she dealt with by stealing vegetables and trading them for the bread that the three shared. After liberation, Seren married another Holocaust survivor and emigrated to Canada, and later to the U.S. In a moving afterword her daughter describes her mother's strong personality. Photos.
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