The Seamstress

I purchased this book after talking to someone at a car dealership!! She had told me about it and I thought it sounded interesting. It was better than I had thought it would be. This is a first hand account from a surviver. Some of the areas were glossed over but enough detail was given to get a good picture of what was happening and what these people lived through.

This book is very plainly written, and, although it is not challenging in any way (personally, I like to be a little challenged when I read), I have given it four stars. This is because the story is told in a way that holds the reader's interest all the way through. You can tell that it is written from the heart.

This was an unrelenting and horrific retelling of the millions of stories that haunt us still. It was difficult to read and there was little to enjoy, except the survival against all odds. Of course, we need to remind ourselves from time to time how this injustice was wrought on innocents, but it's never easy and it's never enjoyable.

Books about the holocaust have a haunting quality about them, so it is difficult to say one "likes" such a book. It's just important to not forget it. Some of books about this subject slowly disappear off the shelves.

After visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., I have been reading several stories from this atrocity. We have to never let this horror happen again. The strength and courage of the
people who were sent to the camps is above anything I could ever imagine.

........the writing from the main characters perspective took me on her journey in a way that felt visceral .........
it opened my eyes to an area of the Jewish community that you don't hear much about..........
the strength and courage of the characters was remarkable and painful to read................

I appreciated reading the Holocaust memoir of a woman. Reading of Sara's life before WWII was enthralling. I see that other reviewers found the book slow and flat, at least in places, but I didn't have that experience.

Sara's travels and her worklife as a young woman before the war set this book apart from anything I'd read before. Her description of Bucharest was especially interesting to me, as I've not read much at all about it during that time period.

The war years, in addition to the persecution of Jews before the war, was incredibly difficult to read about. Sara persevered because, as she said, she needed to see how it would be after the war ended. It's clear that she persevered also because of her life for life and her family. This period is the bulk of the book, and yet I find myself having a hard time writing about it because of the events that occurred. Sarah was brave. She loved people: her family and her friends. She was firm and resolute. This is an incredible story of survival and of love for life and people.

One of my favorite things about this book was that it includes some follow-up information of Sara's life after the war. When Sarah tells of the anti-Semitism in Germany following the war, this drove home the pain she and other survivors felt all the more. That felt like such an extraordinary burden to heap on top of the already immense pain and suffering of Holocaust survivors.

I have only two points of critique. Neither is particularly essential to the book or the story being told, but both were extremely distracting to me as a reader. For one, Sara's daughter Marlene wrote an Afterword in which she alternately refers to her mother as Sara, Seren, and "my mother". It was somewhat jarring for me to read Marlene refer to her mother by her first name in the midst of also calling her "mother". This may seem like a small thing, but the Afterword is the very end of the book, and having Marlene refer to her mother by her first name left me wondering about her relationship with her mother. Or else this just wasn't cleaned up by good editors and test readers. My other point of contention is that Sara wrote that her father had "seven spoiled children" (p. 7) from his first (deceased) wife, but throughout the book there are only six older siblings to whom she refers (Berta, Louise, Rose, Herman, Meyer, Mendel). There are also five younger children born to her father and mother together: Shlomo, Eliezer, Seren/Sarah, Zipporah, Esther. Perhaps there were seven half-siblings to Sara, and one never had a relationship with Sara, or perhaps the number seven is an error and should have said six. Either way, I kept reading and wondering about that seventh older child. I'm a detail fiend, and that distracted me. I know, small thing, right? But in a book about people being persecuted, losing their lives, and losing connections, I did find myself quite hung up on what happened to that missing older sibling.

I liked the book a lot. I'm glad I read it. The events overlap with those of books by other Holocaust survivors (the extermination of many women at Ravensbruck in Jan 1945 as relayed in The Hiding Place; the evacuation of Ravensbruck in early spring 1945 from Rena's Promise), which connected me to other books I've read.

This book seamstress, was a very good read. It takes place during World War II and the seamstress is a Jewish young woman who starts out by going to high school, which was run by a catholic group, where the priests spoke a lot about how evil the Jews were, she ended up getting so angry she truly well at the priest that was teaching, she threw a bottle of ink at him, and of course left school. Not wanting to tell her father that she left school since he would want her to return to the home and help at home, she took a job as an apprentice seamstress, she always did like sewing, but she did not tell her parents that she had left school and was working. That would have shamed her father and he would have wanted her home right away. This follows Her as she comes into her own person, becomes very good seamstress and dressmaker. As the war gets worse things change, some of her family ends up coming to live with her. and she gets them jobs and helps them to get started. As things get worse for the Jews her father and her are taken into custody, beaten and tortured purely because they are Jews, and the Nazis hated them. Things worse from there And she brings her mother. To the city for safety. Her mother was her father's second wife, the first having died and she has a lot of older has to have siblings from her father's first marriage . This is a very good book I very much enjoyed it I love going to go into more detail as it would ruin the book for anyone who plans on reading it. I do recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the World War II timing, as she works and slaves to survive and to help friends and family to survive. This is an excellent story and it is a biography so it's true. I truly enjoyed this book, in fact parts of it could have been my own family so it really made me think.

This book details the experiences of a Romanian Jew both before and during WWII. Sara was an independent and bright girl, earning a scholarship to school. However, the negative attitude regarding Jews leads her to leave school, not telling her parents of her plan, and become a seamstress. Her skills serve to sustain her as more restrictions are put in place, and life becomes more challenging. She suffers through family arrests as well as her own, and the trauma of seeing sudden deaths before her eyes. As she, her family, and her friends end up in the camps, the struggle to survive becomes all encompassing. Through her small group, they support each other under horrendous conditions. The return to the outside world is also traumatic as the women seek to regain their health and attempt to find their families.

My God what strength and courage this woman had from girlhood on. First she bucks the Eastern European patriarchy and establishes her own identity in Bucharest. We then follow her with baited breath through the forests of Eastern Europe, to Germany packed like chickens into sweltering train cars and into the dark primeval forest of Germany to Ravensbrook prison. It says something that she considered Auschwitz to be a holiday after what they went thru in at Ravensbrook. She does not pull any punches in this book; there are wise and evil Jews, viscous and kind gentiles, good and bad men, sweet and menacing women. She does not have much good to say about religious zealots of any persuasion including her own uncle. There is something about the writing of this book that so totally draws you in. You experience simple rural life, the court of King Carol, forced labor parties, concentration camps, starvation, bombing raids as if you were right there. But, all along there is a saving humor and detachment and a willingness to call a spade a spade. Told with much love (and a shrewd eye) for her huge extended family; you will want to adopt Saren as your own. Thanks to the brilliant audio recordings I can hear her voice and aphorisms in my head; and by God I am going to listen to them to. Of course I had known all about the Holocaust; seen the movies, read the books, did the numbers. But this is the first book that caused me to live every stage of crumbling social order and descend into Holocuast Hell. I know Saren caused the serendipitous events that caused this book to be accidentally found and published. She is still up in heaven "being prepared, watching and learning, and staying quietly unnoticed while working her A,B & C plans. Shalom and thank you Faithful Guardian.

This is most definitely a book worth reading. I have read most of the published first-person holocaust accounts over the years. Each is horrifying, heartbreaking, and poignant. Each is filled with so much loss and yet often, in the end, with a tiny glimmer of light and hope. The Seamstress, similar in many ways, is also unique in my view in that it paints a picture of the life of the Jewish inhabitants of her particular area just prior to and during World War II, an area about which I have not read in other works. Rather than comparing it to other holocaust accounts, as some reviewers have done, I feel it can, without question, stand on its own. I found Sara Tuval’s account forthright but not arrogant, as some have felt. I did not feel that she was trying to present her situation as worse than anyone else’s but rather was just stating it as she remembered experiencing it. I found it extremely interesting; it kept me reading late into the night. We know in the beginning that Sara survives. Reading of what she goes through, how she gets through it, how she tries to protect others, and what she becomes after the war is an experience I am happy to have had.

This is a beautifully written book about a horrible time in history. It is the life of Seren a Jewish girl who was born and lived in Romania. Seren had long blonde hair and blue eyes so she could easily pass as Aryian/Gentile.

From childhood she was a girl who stood her ground and would not let herself be put down for being Jewish. She lived with her large family close to the Romanian border at a lumber mill that her father was the head of.

Seren was a very smart girl and ended up winning a scholorship to gymnasium in Bucharest an all gentile school. She ends up leaving home to go against her fathers will. She also gets kicked out of the school when she fights back against anti-Jewish statements made by a Priest instructor.

She finds herself as an apprentice to a Seamstress and she is very good at it. She is most sought out by the high society women. Of course they do not know she is a Jew.

Then her friend at work Rachel doesn't come to work one day. The family just disappears..Seren now is fearful for herself and decides to return home. Her landlady's son is in the service and he gets her safely onto the train saying she is his sister going to tend to grandma and sits her down between two Iron Guards (NAZI's of Romania) and she is thus spared showing her Papers and being thrown off the train. When she gets to the border there are guards and she knows she cannot cross being a Jew so she goes thru the forrest at night full of wolves. She finds an unmanned gate and crosses safely home.

Seren and the few sisters left at home have about a year together then the knock comes in the night. Father and daughter are taken away, they are made to walk down the mountain some 2 weeks of travel and thrown into prison as spys. They are beaten for weeks. She never signs the paper they want her to saying she is a spy because she is not.

Seren ends up in Ravensbruck concentration camp with Ester her sister and two friends. The story of their survival together is both shocking and tender at the same time. Seren lives and conducts herself always in a manner most becoming even in the most horrid of times.

This is a heartbreaking and heartwarming book all at the sametime. An account that needs to be treasured and remembered. You will not be dissappointed in this book. I highly recommend it.

This Holocaust survival memoir is both unique and remarkable and ensures we will never forget the tragedies suffered at the hands of the Nazis. This story in particular evinces the notion that no two Holocaust stories are the same- so many people suffered in so many different places and in so many different ways.

Seren's story teaches us that survival for so many depended upon connections with others- friends/ relatives, etc. Seeimingly so many Holocaust survival stories depict this idea of surviving for others or because of others. Hence, her story teaches us not only of love and relationships but of what it takes not to give up or give in.

I have read a few times that reviewers found the tone of this novel "detached," and/or "irreverant," and I wholeheartedly disagree. I was extremely connected with the characters and felt Seren's emotions throughout the various stages of her life. Indeed, in contrast to so many survivors who can not speak of the atrocities they witnessed and suffered, the very fact that Seren was able to tell her story shows a great deal of strength and her ability to connect with her past on an emotional level.

I HIGHLY recommend this book, and believe it should be required reading in all schools. It would make an excellent book club selection, and would greatly enhance any courses on the Holocaust, WWII, women's studies, history, etc.

OMG! This book will keep you riveted to your seat until you finish it. I loved it because there was no fancy language, descriptions, thought bubbles or literary license taken by the author. Just a straightforward story about a young Romanian girl in the wrong place at the wrong time who goes through hell & lives to tell the tale. Seren has wits, gumption, courage & pulls herself & others through unspeakable conditions in Ravensbrooke womens labor camp. As she relates what happens, I got so angry that I want to kill those Polish women guards. When she is saved, my eyes got moist. If nothing else, it will make you grateful for every little thing you have in your life. If you read no other book on the Holocaust, read The Seamstress. It will make you happy, mad, sad and most of all, grateful for whatever you have. It is life altering.

Although I have an interest in Holocaust memoirs and have read dozens to date, I found Bernstein's story both unique and compelling.

Bernstein begins by providing a full picture of her life, starting from childhood. Then known as Seren, the young Bernstein was happy, growing up as one of the youngest children in a large blended family in Hungary. Her father, a mill supervisor, never failed to provide well for his plethora of children, in-laws and grandchildren.

However, even he couldn't stop the forces that wanted to annihilate the Jews. In the early 1930s -- well before many people even had an inkling of the depth of trouble brewing -- Bernstein, her family and friends were forbidden from working or socializing normally. Before long, the huge extended family was unable to keep in contact, though geographically close by; and Bernstein and her father were imprisoned.

Bernstein's troubles, though, were only just beginning. Over the next few years, as she and her sisters struggled to maintain some semblance of normal lives -- young Seren working as a seamstress -- the Iron Guard began to close in upon them.

Bernstein details the long months when she, her youngest sister Esther, and their friends Lily and Ellen struggled to survive at a little-known all-women's work camp. Although Jews were only a small number of the prisoners, they were treated the worst.

Bernstein, who had a friend amputate her big toe after gangrene set in from the cold, and literally became a walking skeleton, was considered one of the luckiest ones -- she survived.

Told in a manner that is simultaneously human yet matter-of-fact, Bernstein's story of survival against all odds is magnificent. It's impossible to read it and not feel incredulous, let alone to ever forget how one woman could possibly survive so much.

This was engrossing. I noticed that when I was reading this book, the world fell away. Not all books do that for me, but this story does. I recently read Elie Wiesel's "Night" in advance of visiting a concentration camp in Germany (Dachau). Although that classic and early Holocaust memoir is gripping, it somehow lacks detail, or time advances too quickly or something. It feels like most of the story is left out. Victor Frankl's memoir "Man's Search for Meaning" also seems too short, in the same way, though certainly insightful. Bernstein's memoir is even more personal and includes the entire context of the Holocaust, beginning with her Romanian childhood and moving on, we grow up with her and experience her increasing concern and efforts as a young adult to keep relocating to the "safest" parts of Eastern Europe (Budapest was her last stop). As she gradually becomes accustomed to dealing with Antisemitism and Nazism on a practical level and to outwitting its devotees and institutions on a daily basis, without giving up her work, family, friends, or freedom, she finds herself better prepared than most to survive the final ordeal and indignities of the trains, camps, imprisonments, and starvation that ultimately await her. You feel yourself growing with her, and gain what feels like a deeper understanding of what she survived and how she did it.

Seren Tuvel began her life as a carefree child growing up in a beautiful, peaceful part of Romania. Secure in her intelligence and in the love of her eight siblings and parents, the anti-Semitism that raged in Romania seemed nothing more than an annoyance to Seren and her family. After receiving a full scholarship to attend a prestigious gymnasium (high school) in Bucharest, Seren travels to her country's capital to city to quench her thirst for learning. This dream of gaining knowledge is abruptly ended, however, when Seren throws an inkwell in the face of one of her professors after he makes an anti-Jewish remark. She flees the school, begins work as a seamstress, and enjoys city life. Nazis invade Bucharest and the entire Romanian country; Seren feels that she can take care of herself. Yet soon this feeling of security fades and Seren decides that she must go back to her country home to escape the growing Jewish persecution in the city. Disaster meets her there as well when she and her father are rounded up in a horrifying night raid by the Nazis and sent to a federal prison, where they are falsely accused of being government spies. Seren is released from prison, yet as she receives word that her father is losing his mind, and realizes the destruction of Jewish life around her, she knows that her "journey" is far from over. Indeed, the pages of her story take us deep into the horrors of Auschwitz, and show us how somehow, Seren "rebuilt" her tortured life following the war.
In many ways, this Holocaust memoir is not extraordinary in its genre. However, in a few key ways, Seren's memoir is supremely effective and unforgettable. First, as I read "The Seamstress", I was amazed by the utter lack of bitterness in the book. Seren simply TELLS about the beatings, questionings, and other forms of torture she and family endured at the hands of the Nazis, and never tries to "play-up" a single horror in her life. After the war, it is apparent that Seren simply tries to recover, find her family memebers, and gain a job. She is happy with the husband that she has found, and tirelessly keeps up hope about her life. Wow! I was so amazed and inspired by the fact that Seren never once complained about the havoc the Nazis wreaked on her her life (although that would have been completely justified), and for that reason alone, I would never forget this book. Seren's intense loyalty to her sister, Esther, and friends, Ellen and Lily, in Auschwitz was also uplifting. I was awed by the way Seren insisted that she would be responsible for her friends at Auschwitz, and swore that she would never leave them, even to get food or clothing (which were virtually non-existent at Auschwitz). It seems that this memoir strove to show the high ideals and strong character that were developed in Seren during the Holocaust, and this characteristic of the book alone is enough to make this book a must-read and an inspiration for anyone.

For those like myself who enjoy reading holocaust survivor stories this one is a MUST read! I have lost count of how many survivor stories I have read and enjoyed but this one is by far the best! Well written and with no stone left unturned, Seren tells her story from beginning to end. She was an incredibly strong young girl whose love for her family emits from every page. It is amazing to me that her story can be recounted with no bias or hatred, simply a recounting of her great love of her family, the horrific situations she faced and what she did to survive through those brutal years. It is an incredible testimony to what an exceptional person she was that she was not only able to survive and help her family, but do so with such class and grace. My only regret is that I will never be able to meet this wonderful lady and hug her for all she went through and thank her for her truly inspirational story. One can not read her book and not feel shame and guilt for every time we have complained about life being "unfair and tough on us". I do not know anyone who has lived through the ordeal she did and come out of it so seemingly untarnished. Incredible!

This book was almost not written. And it was almost not published. And revealing as it is, it tells only some of the tale. Some things are just too close, too hard, too emotional, too overwhelming to share. Yet share she did, and we are richer for it, even if we don't know the whole story.
The story is a familiar one in some ways. Young Sara was a survivor, even before this term became indelibly linked with the Holocaust. Outgoing, ambitious, adventurous, Sara struck out in the world early and learned hard lessons in cruelty and hatred. Yet her spirit remained and helped her survive the unsurvivable. In fact, given her condition at the end of the war it is remarkable she did survive. Perhaps her single-minded dedication to her sister and friends enabled her to forget about her horrible condition. She truly willed herself to survive.
Yet the story, as so many others, may never have come to light. After the ward there was so much else to do, so much time to make up. Only in her later years did Sara think of writing her story. And when it was done she could not get it published so she put it away. Her daughter found the manuscript after Sara's death, and published it 15 years later.
Sara never saw her book in print. You should.

If your looking for a great nonfiction book this is it! This will be the third time that I've read it. It's very well written and holds your attention.

If you can't stomach scenes of death and cutting off frostbitten toes I would advise you not to read this.
The first time I read this book was the summer I was going into 8th grade. My mother was concerned that I was reading too much made up stuff for my own good, so she challenged me to read a nonfiction book. Of course I doubted her that any work of nonfiction could be as intriguing as what I had been reading (mostly fantasy books); this book definitely captured my interest. And 5 years later here I am buying it. I am so glad that I decided to give it a try!

It was pure chance that I started reading this book... I then could not stop reading it. The author's words brought both laughter and tears to me. This book was more powerful for me than reading Anne Frank. The scene where the author, weighing 44 pounds, was picked up by an Allied soldier when the concentration camp survivors were freed was a powerful scene. Sara had thought it was raining as her cheeks felt wet. The wetness was from the soldier's tears as he carried her. I hope this incredible book receives the recognition that it deserves.

Serious, studious Seren (later known as Sara) stands out from the siblings in her large Jewish Romanian family. At thirteen, in spite of her father's stern disapproval, she leaves home to study in Bucharest on a scholarship. Disheartened by the constant anti-Semitic comments of her teachers, she defiantly leaves the school. Rather than return home humbled, she apprentices herself to a dressmaker and soon becomes an accomplished seamstress. Seren's blond hair and blue eyes don't "look Jewish" , so she has little trouble finding employment.
But in time, the insidious racism of World War II Europe engulfs Seren and her family. Captured by the Nazis, Seren and her young sister Esther are sent to the labor camp Ravensbruck, where they are brutally treated and are given as little as a single carrot a day to eat. It is only through the quiet, determined strength of Seren that the girls survive. When finally liberated at the end of the War, twenty-seven year old Seren weighs little more than forty pounds.
There are many stories of Holocaust survivors, but The Seamstress ranks as one of the best. The memorable power of Seren's story is not in emotionally charged language, but in the simple, gritty details of this girl's overwhelming struggle to survive. Readers will not quickly forget the young heroine of this finely crafted biography.

Instead of buying Harry Potter we need more books like this. This was such a beautiful story of hope and courage, strength and determination. It tells history the way it was and I cannot tell you enough how this book touched my heart and my daughters heart. My daughter picked up the book and never put it down, she read the whole thing in 3 days. I could hear her giggle and laugh at some of the funny parts and I could see her tears in some of the sensitive heart moving parts. This book will capture you. Just beautiful
I wish they could make Sareen's story into a movie

God Bless

The best memoir about the Holocaust I have ever read--bar none. The angst of being torn from a pleasant, if not privileged, life and the rigours of surviving all the degrading and humiliating tortures and deprivations of the camps is told in such riveting detail. Sophie's amazing strength and cunning is remarkable. That she could make it into such a well told story, is more amazing still. This will always be one of my favorite books. I found it very inspirational.

Considering the day and age we live in, this book should be a "must read" for all young adults. It, without a doubt, exposed what true hardships are in a time when people in general don't know what true human suffering really is. In this book, suffering, gives way to triumph and the reader is taken on a complete emotional journey. Read it, pass it along to your friends and see just how your perception will change.

Perhaps the best first-hand English language account of life inside the Ravensbrück concentration camp (where my own grandmother was also imprisoned). I have read a large number of Holocaust memoirs in my own research, but what is especially striking about this hard-to-put-down account is the story of how the Nazis systematically dismantled a centuries-old community of Romanian Jews. The physical destruction of the 6 million was horrendous enough, but the intentional destruction of an entire culture is almost equally as obscene (and has been less commented on). Unforgettable.
Victor Lerch, author of "Four Wheels to Freedom"
Four Wheels to Freedom.

Seren Tuvel survived Ravensbruck, one of the most brutal of all concentration camps, and witnessed some of the most gratuitously violent treatment I've ever heard described, yet she managed to keep her optimism, decency, dignity, humor and integrity throughout it all.
This was a very difficult, painful story to read, though beautifully written.

I really enjoyed this book despite the grim setting. The author speaks in a very clear and simple voice that drew me in within the first few pages. It is a remarkable story, the more so because it is true. Even if you are put off by the Holocaust and the Nazi persecution of Europe, Ms. Tuval's spirit carries her through the war and, as a result, conveys some hope when she is surrounded by misery.

This is a very emotional story to read, as expected. There were heros of the time, and Seren was one of them. A strong women with a goal to survive and help those around her to survive. it was expecially interesting to read simply about her life before the Germin invation; gathering with friends at coffee houses, enjoying a young life full of possiblies - not unlike our lives today. It is understandable how she felt "we are a civilized people, they wouldn't really hurt us" -

In the early 1030s, as Hitler grasped his power tightly; the Jews began to be treated very unfairly. For years they had been considered "dirty", but their lives were about to become miserable. During the 1930s many Jews and others who would have hurt the Nazi beliefs, like homosexuals, Jehovah's Witness believers, and other "criminals", were put into concentration camps and basically not allowed to live.
The story of Seren Tuvel, a young, Jewish woman, is a story of courage and will to survive. Seren was always different from her family, for she had no intention of staying in the home her whole life. She left her family behind in a village in Romania and moved to Budapest to study while she was still a young teenager. In school, Seren was teased for being a Jew, though she did not look like a Jew. Seren had long, blonde hair and blue eyes, just like anyone native to the land she was living. When she was in Budapest, she quit school and became a seamstress. Soon, as Germany gained power, the Nazis slowly crept into her life, taking away her rights and some of her dignity, just because she was Jewish. It was not difficult for her to find jobs, like it was for other Jews, because Seren looked like a Gentile. As the war in Europe went on, her family dispersed to different places, like Israel or to different cities in Romania and Hungary, but the Jews soon would not be able to travel. Before long, Jewish men were taken into the labor force to support Hungary. Only weeks after that, the women were also forced to help support their enemy. Seren, her sister, and two friends met up at this point and would stay together to survive. They went through the work camps, leaning on each other for survival.
Seren Tuvel must have known how important her story of courage was, because just years after moving to America, she began to write her story. Seren (Sara) Tuvel-Bernstein wrote her memoir magnificently. Her leadership, love, and devotion to her loved ones, were revealed in such a precious manner that the reader cannot help but love her. Seren wrote, "I felt completely responsible for these three young girls[Seren's sister and two friends]; to me we were all sisters. I had to do everything in my power to enable us to remain alive." She revealed the truth in her own perspective and still showed some of the perspectives of the others around her, for example what her family and friends though of the events that had been happening.
A great strength shone through the book as Seren told the readers exactly what she had been through, although all of what she said was her interpretation of the event. She confessed her feelings about people, even a man named Samuel, with whom she did not have the feelings that he had for her. After he had told her his feelings and she told him something that made him very happy she wrote, "What in the world have I let myself in for now?" Seren let Samuel think that she had the same feelings for him, while, really, she had no intention of settling down with anyone. There were other instances where Seren told the reader her thoughts during all the horrible events in her life that she had not told many other people. Writing those confessions gave her memoir a strong truth and power.
Although Seren expressed how she felt easily, the people around her, especially the family members, were not well depicted. Two very important family members, her sisters Esther and Zipporah were some of the members that were somewhat confusing. Those two people were not easily recognizable in the beginning. Once the sisters got their share of being alone with Seren, they got their own distinct voice. They each should have gotten that closer to the beginning of the story.
The memoir of such a great survivor during the Holocaust is a fantastic book to read. A reader will see what Seren Tuvel and the other Jews went through and get close to really getting to know the author. Seren does not get gory and give too many horrifying details of anything that happened, but the readers see enough to really feel what the prisoners of the Nazis went through. The story is absolutely amazing! It is not fast-paced, but Seren keeps the reader hooked and shows what her life was like.

The Seamtress is another book of several stories I have read regarding women and the holocaust. Her courage and endurance is amazing. Her ability to do this not only for herself but for others as well makes her a hero. I would hope that I could be such a person if I was ever called upon to live through such an ordeal.

Without mincing words, Sara Tuvel Bernstein tells a touching story of the torture, hardship she went through. In The Seamstress, you will contact the hope needle that will help you stitch you life pieces into a masterpiece.
This book is a true life story told first hand by the survivor herself.
- Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha,
Nigerian-born Life Strategist, Book Reviewer & Author

I found this a very moving story about surviving in unimaginable circumstances, which of course is the Holocaust. I enjoyed getting to know the author's life prior to the war to help contrast it to her description of the "wasted time." This account wasn't so graphic that it turned you away but it certainly will stick with you and give you pause the next time you consider life's aggravations.