A review by vivelarevolution
The Dressmakers of Auschwitz by Lucy Adlington

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

This is an incredibly heavy book and therefore took me quite some time to read. Not long after I finished reading it, the movie Zone of Interest came out, and it reminded me of this. I feel like, in many analyses or histories of the Holocaust, the participation and complicity of German and Nazi women is often underplayed or simply ignored. Even in feminist histories of the Holocaust, I have often noticed a focus on the bravery and resilience of the women who survived or helped others survived, specifically to the exclusion of taking the time to focus on the cruelty and apathy of the women benefiting from the atrocity. This book does mostly focus on the women who were enslaved in Auschwitz's fashion salon, but it also repeatedly notes the ways in which Nazi women, especially Hedwig Hoss, participated in the Nazi genocide.

In terms of style, the book flips back and forth between a narrative style and a simple informative style. I enjoyed it and felt that the alternation suited the type of information that was being shared with the audience at any given point. All in all, it is a very informative book that is not difficult for an average layperson to read.
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