Sara Tuval Bernstein - The Seamstress

Striking... unusual.

Kirkus Reviews

A remarkable memoir in every senseSeren Tuvel speaks with an unwavering voice, acts with heroic will, and displays uncommon loyalty toward family and friends. The Seamstress is a privilege to read.

Michael Fishbane, Nathan Cummings Professor of Jewish Studies and Chair, Committee on Jewish Studies, University of Chicago

Well-told.... deserves a prominent place in the archive of Holocaust survival stories.

Publishers Weekly

Written with great fluency, drama, and compassion by a woman whose indomitable spirit shines forth from every page.

Steven Schnur, author of The Shadow Children

The Seamstress is utterly compelling and moving. Its more than the story of an extraordinary woman caught in the Nazi web. The destruction of ordinary life, the terror of casual inhumanity, and the dignity of persevering courage and endurance are like singular musical instruments in a great orchestra, each going its complex, parallel path until the mix comes together with a single and final mighty chord, sounding out the triumph of the human spirit.

Jean Sasson

An extraordinary story of one womans courage and determination.

Faye Kellerman

T he S eamstress

A Memoir of Survival

S ARA T UVEL B ERNSTEIN

with Louise Loots Thornton and Marlene Bernstein Samuels

INTRODUCTION BY EDGAR M. BRONFMAN

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

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THE SEAMSTRESS

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Copyright 1997 Marlene Bernstein Samuels, as trustee of the Meyer-Bernstein Revocable Trust, and Louise Loots Thorton.

Interior text design by Amanda Dewey.

Maps by Jeffrey L. Ward.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

BERKLEY is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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PRINTING HISTORY

G. P. Putnams Sons edition / October 1997

Berkley trade paperback edition / May 1999

ISBN: 978-1-101-66396-7

Version_1

T o my sister Esther and my friend Ellen, who despite their youth so courageously survived the horror and the pain, and to the memory of all the men and women who died locked in the cars when our train was bombed at Schwabhausen, Bavaria, on April 29, 1945.

One warm June evening in 1978, my husband, Doug, and I happily anticipated going out to dinner with Dougs sister and brother-in-law, Linda and Jake Bernstein. I had always loved Lindaonly fourteen when Doug and I married, sweet and vivaciousand I quickly grew to love Jake as well, one of the funniest persons I had ever met. When their car pulled up and Doug and I climbed into the back seat, I sank against the soft cushion with a delicious sigh of contentment.

As Jake put the car in reverse, he turned to me and asked, Would you like to hear something incredible? He slipped a cassette into the tape deck, and a woman with a European accent began to speak in a soft voice:

Until the war broke out, I led a reasonably normal life, reasonably happy, but in 1939 everything changed. But Id rather not talk about the years from 1939 until 1944. Im just going to start from December 1944 in Ravensbrck. Very few people have heard of Ravensbrck. It was not very well known. The main reason was there were very few survivors. It was impossible to imagine. All the camps were impossible to imagine, but Ravensbrck was somethingout of the ordinary. First of all, it was located near East Berlin. It was a huge camp, housing only women. And we Romanians were the only Jewish girls brought there. The rest were all Gentile, some devout Catholics, nuns, French, Italian and Polish....

After Jake clicked off the tape, I sat in silence, stunned. Who is she? I asked then.

My mother. Both she and my father survived the concentration camps.

I had met his mother, Sara, at Linda and Jakes wedding. She was a diminutive woman wearing a finely tailored, beige lace dress she had made herselfshe made all the dresses, including Lindas gownwith light brown, almost blonde, hair and pale blue eyes dancing with light. Welcome to the family! she had said, stretching out her arms to me. As I walked into them, grinning widely, and she held me close, I thought, Oh, how wonderful! We get Jake and her.

She wants to write a book about her experiences, Jake said now, bringing me back to the present. For many years I think she tried to put it out of her mind as much as possible. Then about 1965 or so, she went to a lecture about the Holocaust. A professor in economics or something spoke at one of the universities here and he claimed that the Holocaust wasnt nearly as bad as the Jewish people made it out to be. There were camps and all, but Jews took what happened and embellished it, making it much worse, so people would feel sorry for them, buy things in their stores.

Thats outrageous!

Thats what my mother thought. She came home from that lecture furious! She couldnt believe that what she had suffered was being glossed over as though it never happened. Thats when she decided she had to write a book. He paused. Do you want to hear the rest of the tape?

As Saras low, unpretentious voice drifted over me, relating in a matter-of-fact tone horror after horror, loss after loss, I kept thinking: Who would have known? Who would have thought that the small, vivacious woman who held out her arms to me had survived such terrible suffering? How could she not be broken, I wondered, or bitter?

* * *

Several weeks later Jake asked me, Do you remember my mothers tape?

Of course! I thought of it for days afterwards.

Would you be interested in working with her on her book?