Published: 19 October 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
When Lucy Adlington learned about a camp studio where the women were forced to make clothes for Nazi wives, she set out to write their remarkable story. WATCH VIDEO INTERVIEW
"I THOUGHT, WHO are these women?" Ms Adlington, a dress historian, tells ABC RN’s Late Night Live.
She couldn't find out much beyond a few names, but she was inspired to make up a story, imagining what life might have been like for a group of friends working in a sewing shop in a concentration camp.
The story became the young adult novel The Red Ribbon, which was published in 2017 and attracted a worldwide audience.
Later that year, the novel was featured in the Jewish Chronicle.
It was then the emails started to arrive.
FULL STORY A secret dressmaking salon saved a group of Jewish women from certain death in Auschwitz (ABC)
Video interview with Lucy Adlington by The Jewish Independent journalist Aviva Lowy was recorded for the Sydney Jewish Writers Festival, courtesy of Shalom
