Martin Greenfield is one of the world's most respected and accomplished tailors. Since emigrating from the former Czechoslovakia to America in 1947, he has dressed everyone from the Rat Pack and Leonardo DiCaprio to Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Barack Obama.
But Greenfield's success
follows tremendous adversity. As a teenager, he survived two horrific
years in concentration camps during the Holocaust, and lost his parents
and siblings at the hands of the Nazis. In this excerpt from his memoir Measure of a Man,
Greenfield describes how an encounter with an SS guard at Auschwitz led
him to pick up a needle and thread for the first time, and how tragedy
taught him the power of clothes.
Martin Greenfield:
It was our second day inside Auschwitz. The soldiers asked if we knew
any trades, like masonry, carpentry, medicine—that kind of thing. Dad
grabbed my wrist and thrust it into the air.
"He is a mechanic. Very skilled," he said.
Above the gates at Auschwitz was a sign. It read Arbeit macht frei
("Work makes you free"). By volunteering my skills as a mechanic, my
father protected me. It was his way of marking me for the Germans as a
Jew whose skills they could exploit, as one not to be burned.
As soon as my father
offered up my skills, two Germans walked toward us to take me away. I
then did something I should not have done, something stupid: I ran. Why,
I do not know. Fences and soldiers were everywhere. Where did I think I
was going? I cannot say. But for whatever reason, I ran.
A few paces into my
sprint, I heard a barking German shepherd barreling down on me. My arms
pumped hard as I stretched my stride and ran faster than I'd ever run
before. The barks got louder. I snapped my head back over my shoulder
and saw the dog closing in. He leapt and latched his teeth onto my leg. I
looked down. The dog hung from my calf. I shoved his head with both
hands. He snarled and gnashed violently as I struggled to pry him loose.
The dog's jaw unlocked, taking a meaty chunk with him. Blood spurted on
my prisoner uniform, the dog's mouth—everywhere. I tried not to cry.
Not in front of my father, not in front of the other men and boys.
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The two soldiers tromped
over to retrieve the dog and make sure he was uninjured. They then
snatched me up off the ground and hauled me away from the group. I
thought maybe that night I would join my father again, but that did not
happen. That day, my second inside Auschwitz, was the last time I ever
saw my father.
The Germans dragged me
to the laundry. Whether they wanted me first to perform a simpler task
than mechanical work, or whether this was a punishment for trying to
flee, I do not know. But after my sprinting stunt, I was eager to show
the Germans I was a hard worker who could be of use.
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