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Bernstein, Sara Tuvel, and Edgar Miles Bronfman. The Seamstress a Memoir of Survival. Berkley Books, 1999.

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During Seren's first year of school she quickly came to the realization that she and her siblings were one of the few jewish kids in the school. She often got named called and bullied. Until one day Seren and her siblings got into a physical altercation with the peasant boys and they beat them up. For the rest of the year the boys said nothing to them.  ("That group of boys never bothered us again," pg.23)

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At Seren's school every year 4th graders with the best grades compete to go to a school in Bucharest  to  further their education. Sara competed in the contest and won and the following year she would be sent to the gymnasium. Her father did not agree with this but Seren decided for herself that she was going. She left that fall. Her father did not speak to her after disobeying his orders.

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Seren Tuvels experience at the gymnasium 

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Seren Tuvels experience at the gymnasium 

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When Seren attended the school she was the sole jewish girl in the whole school. She was met with even more disappointment when the religion teacher preached badly about jews. Two months later when Seren could no longer listen to the badmouthing of her people she had a tantrum and threw her inkwell at the Priest she then left the school.    ( "Suddenly I was standing up. Then I was grabbing the inkwell from my desk. I watched myself fling it at the priest." pg. 32)

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by this time it is 1931 and Seren looks for a job after leaving the school in Bucharest. While looking for work she came across interns coming out of a salon. She goes and speaks to the owner who gives her the internship. The deal that her and the owner had included Seren being roommates with the owner,  cleaning and running errands during the first year and during the second year beginning to sew. After that if Seren passes the exam she will then receive a license and only then can she become a paid seamstress.

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Fast Forward to October of 1941 Seren and her father woke up to a loud banging on the door in the middle of the night. The Hungarian gendarmerie had come to take them to prison. They walked with many other jewish people and slept in barns until they arrived at the prison. They accused Seren of being a spy for the russians. Every Sunday the prisoners got to go into the courtyard for an hour, there Seren would sit with her father. She realized that her father was getting beaten, making him age faster than ever. In November, Seren was released from prison for 14 days to look for a new place for her family to live since they could no longer live between the two borders. When Seren returned to prison they put her along with the other prisoners on the train to Budapest. When they arrived they were set free.

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It is 1942 and it's been almost a year since Seren got released from prison. Mainly, none of the jewish men got released. Serens father, Abraham, got transferred to a mental institution after a mental breakdown as a result of the beatings and interrogations. Seren was working as a seamstress near the institution so she would often visit. One day, after work, Seren and her Mother, got a letter from her sister, Esther, and opened it. The letter read "Seren, Father shot by police. Went berserk in air raid. Jewish Federation burial. Come back soon, Esther." page 140. Seren and her mother cried all night into each other's arms sad that their hardworking father went mad and died.

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In October of 1943 early in the morning Seren was taking Zipporah to a clients house for an abortion after getting pregnant to her new fiance. As they were walking to Zipporah's appointment a Hungarian National Guard ordered them to stop. The Guard ordered them into a car, from there they were taken to a a special labor detail.

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After two months of being in the Labor camp it was now Hanukkah and Zipporah was getting further along in her pregnancy. In the late afternoon, A guard yelled at Zipporah to pace 10 steps forward. He then pulled out his rifle and shot her for being pregnant. All night Seren laid under the tree crying. Towards the end of February the special detail ended and Seren was sent home. ("The guard strutted to a place a few feet from her side, raised his rifle, and in one quick, terrible instant, in one movement that almost stopped my heart, he fired. Zipporah fell to the ground." page 162.)

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In June 1944 the national Guard took any women between the ages of 15-40 would be taken into the labor force. They began their journey walking out of Budapest and began working in the plains of Hungary. Everyday when they woke up to start working more dead bodies appeared than the day before. One month into the camp around 1,000 people died.

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During the middle of the night in the fields of Budapest they began walking to the train station, after three weeks of marching to the border they got on a train in a small town in Austria. After 14 days without water Seren lost count and she began to get delirious. The train sometimes would stay at one location for days and the windows and doors remain locked at all times. After a little over three weeks on the train The german soldiers ordered them off and they began to walk, soon arriving at a gray building and they walked in.

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fall of 1944. During their stay at the all-women's camp Seren, Esther(Serens sister) Ellen, and Lily stayed closely together.When they first arrived there the guards shaved their heads and pubic hair, and gave them new clothes to wear. Every morning they woke up at 4am to get counted and they began to work. They got one meal which usually consist of stale bread, and broth. The jewish people had to work outside while the rest of the prisoners such as prostitutes, criminals etc got to work on the inside and they also got more food. Every morning the officers would bring out the dead bodies in the camp, each day the pile for the jewish women had doubled in size. Later in their time spent in ravensbruck concentration camp as the guards started giving them less and less food Seren started to steal radishes and trading with the Polish girls for fresh bread. One night the Guards kept recounting for a missing girl, when they realized the missing girl was just a dead girl it was midnight. Ultimately Seren had to cut off her toe from gangrene. (" The first guard took her scissors and made several quick, sawing movements, My hair fell into her hand." page 197)

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On January 19th,1945 Seren, Esther, Lily and Ellen left the all women's camp because they were being transferred to a different camp because Germany was losing the war. There was over 200 Jewish women on the train. On the tenth night on the train after only receiving food once a week all the women on the train were very weak. After being starved Lily decided she was too exhausted to go on and passed away in Seren's arms. ("Finally  she said, 'I'm not going to live anymore, Seren.' Before I could answer she put her head on my breast and died." page 249)

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They arrived at this camp called Turkheim, they were in a smaller section of the camp called Dachau. As they were there they came across Jewish men who looked well fed and clothed which was new to the women who were previously at the all-womens camp. For 6 weeks the women from that camp were kept in a cellar underground. Seren sees her nephew in this camp and he tells her that the guards were supposed to be feeding and clothing the prisoners. Seren realizes that the reason they are being kept underground was because the Germans were losing the war and would be punished for their crimes. The soldiers made them abandon that camp for another. They arrived in the middle of April it was in Burgau. After April they boarded a train to their next destination.

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On April 29, 1945 they arrived at the station in Schwabhausen. Three cars were in front of the train. Then the Red Cross appeared with crates of food to give when suddenly an air-raid happened.Seren was going to receive food when the bombing happened and slipped under the bus just in time, she was safe. When Seren went back on the bus she saw that Ellen was fine, but Esther had a bullet in her head. She was so in shock that Seren was able to to pull the bullet out and try to control the bleeding. Seren snapped back into reality when she began to here the cries of the men in the cars. After that the girls escaped off the train and they slept in a barn with many other jewish people that escaped. ('There's a bullet sticking out of her head!' Ellen Cried" page 264)

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Later the next day American soldiers arrived in a white truck to take Esther, who was running a high fever to the hospital.They arrived at a convent named Saint Ottilien. When Seren first arrived at the hospital she weighed 44 pounds. Esther had several procedures, While Ellen went to another hospital because she developed hearing problems after she contracted typhoid fever, leaving Seren alone to sleep off and on for 4 weeks as she also typhoid fever. In early june, when Seren's pneumonia had abated she visited Joseph, who was leaving to find the rest of their family.

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After being released from the hospital Seren and many other jewish people were sent to a former Hitler group. There she saw her Uncle who joined an ultra orthodox  branch of Judaism.  Seren discovered that a trade school for holocaust person(s) was established in a city called Waldheim. She decided to attend. In August Seren left for the trade school and worked beside Jews who trained in specialized jobs such as mechanics, carpentry etc.. One day as Seren was working a man approached her, a tailor, who admired her sewing skills.  They began talking and sharing their personal experience of the holocaust which forced them to create a bond.

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As the trade school went on Meyer and Seren got closer as they began to have dinner together,  and speaking after work. One day after work Meyer asked to accompany Seren to go visit Esther. On the way there Seren and Meyer enjoyed each other's company. When they arrived Uncle louis was not pleased to meet Meyer, as he wanted Seren to marry a rabbi. The cycle continued with Seren bringing Meyer home every weekend with her to visit esther. Uncle Louie insisted that Meyer and Seren get married. In October, two months after Seren and Meyer met, they got married in the hospital Esther was staying at. ("I have reached a decision. Since you continue to defy me, Seren, since you continue to see this young man, I insist that the two of you be married here in Feldafing as soon as possible." page. 305)

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After being newly wed, With the start of Serens new life, she also wanted to leave Germany. After Germany had lost the war Jews 'were labeled as spoilers of the race'. Meyer and Seren applied to visas in the united states. Fast Forward 8 months later, in September they had a baby boy, they named him Jacob. A couple months later Meyer came home from work and told Seren great news. The amalgamated Workers union in Canada wanted to sponsor tailors whoever passed the test would get visas and immigrate to Canada.  Meyer passed the test and they began to say their goodbyes. The trip was not that kind to Jews but Alas they left Germany in 1949. ( "Finally the results were announced. Meyer had passed. Immediately the Canadian government applied for our visas." page 316)

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FIfteen years after living in Canada Seren and Meyer had another kid named Marlene and they were extremely happy together. in 1951 Seren got a note from her brother, Shlomo. Since that day Seren saved money to go on a trip to Israel to visit him. In 1964 she sat on an airplane doing so. When she arrived for her two week trip she was greeted happily by her brother shlomo, suprised, she also saw her other brother Eliezer, and her nephews Mishka, Eddie and Joseph, and so on. She was so overwhelmed with love because she hadnt seen her family since before the war started.At the end of her trip, Seren made peace as she found out what happened to her other family members and she could finally make peace with the Holocaust and close that chapter of her life.

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Toward the end of her life, Seren changed her name to Sara for more of a fresh start. Sara - a non smoker- was diagnosed with terminal cancer which was popular among concentration camp survivors. She held on to life tightly to watch her daughter get married and then she passed away shortly after. Sara said to her daughter, that she was not jewish religiously but only genetically. Sara revealed she had no regrets in her life and died peacefully. ("Do I really need to be a religious Jew to be a good Jew." page 338) ("I think now, how could any God, Jewish or not, have let such horrible things happen, such inhumanity of man against man no matter what their religion? How can I be a pious Jew after that?" Page 338)

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This is typically what happened in the crematoriums in the labor camps.

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The Boy in the Striped Pajamas | Final Scene Rescore

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

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How life was like for many holocaust survivors

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Holocaust Survivor Recalls Life At Auschwitz And Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camps | Forces TV

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The guy behind the madness

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The red cross aided the survivors of the holocaust.

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The Red Cross has been a consistent lifeline for people when they need us the most, providing disaster relief assistance, health and safety training, lifesaving blood and more.