Rudolf Höss joins the SS and is assigned as a block leader at the Dachau concentration camp.

Kristallnacht brings two nights of violence against Jewish businesses, with thousands of shops looted, damaged, or destroyed.

Slovakia declares independence as a Nazi client-state, intensifying legal restrictions and harassment directed at Jewish residents.

Notices appear throughout Slovakia ordering unmarried Jewish girls over sixteen to report for forced labor service.

Bracha Berkovič voluntarily surrenders herself to authorities after learning her sister Katka has been arrested and detained.

Irene Reichenberg, Marta Fuchs, and other Jewish women are transported by train into occupied Poland without knowing their destination.

Women arriving at Auschwitz are forcibly stripped of their clothing, shaved, and issued inadequate mismatched uniforms.

Irene's sister Jolli dies during a typhus outbreak that sweeps through the Auschwitz prisoner population.

Hedwig Höss discovers that Marta Fuchs is a skilled seamstress when she requests Marta make her a new winter coat.

The Upper Tailoring Studio opens at Auschwitz with Marta Fuchs appointed as kapo and overseer of its twenty prisoners.

Marta uses her influence over Hedwig to secure seamstress positions for Bracha, Irene, Katka, Renée, and other acquaintances.

Róza Robota leads a gunpowder smuggling operation that destroys one of the crematoriums, and is hanged for her role.

As Allied forces advance, SS officers order Auschwitz prisoners to evacuate at gunpoint, beginning the death march.

Marta splits from the main evacuation group to attempt escape; a book in her backpack deflects the bullet that would have killed her.

Soviet soldiers discover Hunya, Bracha, and other survivors hiding in a shed and assure them the war is over.

This pool traces the most important events driving the story of the Auschwitz dressmakers, from the rise of the Nazi regime through the establishment of the Upper Tailoring Studio and the women's eventual liberation. It begins with Rudolf Höss joining the SS and follows the escalating persecution that forced women like Bracha, Irene, and Marta into deportation and the brutal processing of new arrivals at Auschwitz. The constant threat of death is made vivid through typhus outbreaks that claim the lives of loved ones and the daily terror of camp selections. The pivotal turning point comes when Hedwig Höss discovers Marta's dressmaking skills, leading to the creation of the salon that saves the lives of Marta and her circle of friends. As the war nears its end, the chaotic evacuation of Auschwitz forces life-or-death decisions, with Marta's extraordinary escape and Soviet soldiers' discovery of the survivors bringing the main story to its close.

The headline events of survival in Auschwitz's secret fashion salon.

Bracha Berkovič contracts tuberculosis and spends two years recovering in a sanatorium, falling behind in her schooling.

Hunya Storch establishes her own dressmaking salon in Leipzig, building a loyal client base with her exceptional skills.

The ADEFA label is created to certify German clothing as produced without Jewish labor, despite its inferior quality.

Hunya enters a marriage of convenience that grants her a German work permit, allowing her to remain employed.

The Slovak government passes legislation requiring all Jewish residents to wear a visible yellow Star of David.

Irene Reichenberg and her sister Edith report to the Patrónka munitions factory, joining the assembly point for deportation.

Bracha is assigned to a Kanada sorting facility where she handles the possessions of inmates killed in the gas chambers.

Irene Reichenberg survives a deliberate pill overdose after contemplating suicide by throwing herself against the electric fence.

Marta Fuchs is assigned as a domestic servant in the home of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his family.

Hunya Volkmann arrives at Auschwitz and quickly falls ill, spending time recovering in the camp hospital ward.

Fellow prisoners help Hunya conceal her illness so she can qualify for a position at the Upper Tailoring Studio.

The seamstresses engage in small acts of sabotage by clogging SS toilets with fabric scraps and thread from the studio.

Survivors of the evacuation are loaded into coal wagons under horrific conditions and transported to Ravensbrück concentration camp.

Irene Reichenberg and Renée Ungar successfully evade recapture during the death march out of Auschwitz.

Marta Fuchs opens a new dressmaking salon in postwar Czechoslovakia, inviting Bracha, Hunya, and other former prisoners to join.

This pool covers the significant secondary events that shaped the dressmakers' experiences before, during, and after Auschwitz. It begins with the personal lives of the young women before the war, including Bracha's illness and Hunya's professional ambitions in Leipzig, and traces the growing economic persecution of Jewish businesses through measures like the ADEFA label and the forced wearing of the Star of David. The deportation process is captured through Irene's arrival at Patrónka and Bracha's harrowing work sorting the possessions of gas chamber victims, as well as Irene's crisis of despair that nearly cost her her life. The pool also documents the lesser-known moments that defined the salon experience, from Marta's initial role as a household servant to the seamstresses' small acts of sabotage and Hunya's struggle to qualify for the coveted studio position. It closes with the women's precarious journey through liberation, from the horrors of the coal wagon transport to Ravensbrück to Marta's eventual establishment of a new postwar salon for her fellow survivors.

The personal journeys and hidden details behind the dressmakers' survival.

A nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned businesses begins in Germany, marking the start of organized economic persecution of Jews.

Hunya Storch is forced to close her Leipzig salon after being unable to legally advertise her services without a work visa.

Hunya smuggles valuables underground to Jewish allies while working in the German fur industry, evading detection by officials.

Irene Reichenberg and her family are forced by government decree to relocate to the Jewish Quarter of Bratislava.

Bracha's sister Katka narrowly avoids being sent to the gas chamber during a camp selection, despite suffering a serious leg infection.

Marta Fuchs recognizes that Hedwig Höss's trust gives her a rare opportunity to protect friends and fellow prisoners.

Hunya Volkmann is astonished by the contrast between the camp hospital's squalid conditions and the comfort of the Upper Tailoring Studio.

The women of the Upper Tailoring Studio are permitted to wear fashionable dresses, partially restoring their sense of individual identity.

The Upper Tailoring Studio expands its clientele beyond SS officers and their wives to serve wealthy German civilians.

Marta Fuchs uses her warehouse access to procure forged papers, disguises, and bribes to support prisoner escape attempts.

Walter Rosenberg and Alfred Wetzler successfully escape Auschwitz and deliver warnings about the exterminations to Hungarian Jewish communities.

Mala Zimetbaum, a friend of the seamstresses, chooses suicide rather than face punishment after being recaptured following an escape attempt.

Bracha Berkovič and her sister Katka travel on foot and by hitching rides through a chaotic postwar landscape toward Bratislava.

Bracha learns that Marta Fuchs survived the war when she receives an invitation to work at Marta's new salon.

Author Lucy Adlington meets Bracha Berkovič Kohút at her California home to record her testimony for the book.

This pool focuses on the critical decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that shaped the dressmakers' path through persecution and survival. It opens with the early signs of Nazi economic persecution — the boycott of Jewish businesses and Hunya's forced closure of her Leipzig salon — before tracing how individuals navigated increasingly dangerous circumstances, including Hunya's bold smuggling activities and the Reichenberg family's forced relocation to the Jewish Quarter. Inside Auschwitz, pivotal moments include Katka's narrow escape from a gas chamber selection and Marta's crucial recognition that Hedwig's trust could be turned into a tool for protecting others. The pool captures key turning points within the salon itself — the restoration of dignity through fashionable clothing and the studio's expansion — alongside the underground resistance efforts of Marta and brave prisoners like Rosenberg, Wetzler, and Mala Zimetbaum. It ends with the personal revelations of liberation: Bracha's long journey home, the joyful discovery that Marta survived, and the final scene of author Adlington meeting the aged but vital Bracha to preserve her testimony for history.

The key decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that defined the dressmakers' fate.