It seems like a miracle when Ella gets the job in the sewing workshop. The world outside the windows is brown, gray, and desolate. Inside, there are silks and warm tweeds. Thanks to her grandmother, Ella is not only a good seamstress, but she can also make patterns. It's the additional designing skills that make her special. One day she wants to own her own dress shop. For now, she will work for the wives and officers at Birchwood.
Almost despite herself, she befriends Rose. Rose is smart and fierce. She tells stories to keep the women's minds off the cold, starvation, and cruelty that surrounds them. Unlike Ella, Rose was arrested because her mother spoke out against the growing Nazi threat. Ella was taken on her way home from school, just for being a Jew.
The Nazis have another name for Birchwood. They call it Auschwitz. Every day people arrive at the camp, and every day people die. The workshop is salvation...if the girls can keep their jobs there.
Lucy Adlington's book is a different perspective on the experience at Auschwitz, highlighting the real workshop where starving inmates worked to create beautiful clothes for their oppressors. This is truly a story about Ella's own development. Will she be like Marta, the boss of the workroom, who will do anything to survive no matter who is hurt in the process? What about Carla, the Nazi officer who takes an interest in Ella because of her design work and sometimes treats Ella as a friend but always reminds her she is less than human? Then there is Ella who chooses to live in another world in her mind and who always chooses selflessness no matter the personal cost.
This is a beautiful and heartbreaking book. Recommended for grades 8 and up.
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