Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival

The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival
reviewed on + 268 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


The Seamstress was written by a woman who survived the horrors of a concentration camp named Ravensbruck. There were more than 85,000 women held there; only one in 20 made it out. Yet the tone of the book is matter-of-fact. It is not a siren of drama at it could be. This makes it tolerable to read, as one imagines the conditions people were forced to endure. A deeply moving story, at the same time sad yet also triumphant in that she did, indeed, survive it all, using her intelligence, her wit and her incredible inner strength. She brought her sister and a close friend through it all with her, and lived to raise a family of her own. D.