Four Red Sweaters: Powerful True Stories of Women and the Holocaust

Lucy ADLINGTON

About this book
"Four Red Sweaters" reveals how the ordinary can connect us in extraordinary ways. This non-fiction account tells the stories of four Jewish girls and women during the Holocaust, ranging from ages nine to nineteen. All unknowingly linked by everyday garments. Jock Heidenstein, Anita Lasker, Chana Zumerkorn, and Regina Feldman all faced the Holocaust in different ways. They did not know each other, and had never met. However, each had a red sweater that would play a major part in their lives. Of the four women, Regina (Riwka) Zielinski (nee Feldman) [1925-2014], one of only a handful to survive the October 1943 Sobibor Uprising, would rebuild her life and start anew in Australia. There, she would share her survival experiences at both Sydney Jewish Museum and the Adelaide Holocaust Museum & Andrew Steiner Education Centre. Her own Holocaust biography, “Conversations with Regina”, was penned and published by her son Andrew Zielinski in 2003. "Four Red Sweaters" serves as a powerful reminder of the suffering these four women endured and a celebration of their courage, love, and tenacity.
Product details
Category
Survivor Biographies
Publisher
Hardie Grant - Ultimo Press
Published
2025
ISBN
9781761153419
Country
United States of America
Pages
326
EXCERPT
“Starting her new life in Australia as Mrs Zielinski, Regina’s deft fingers knitted at home for her growing family, while working at a machine to bring in an income…The same hands that had made socks and sweaters in Sobibor….came to make beautiful wedding dresses, dainty children’s clothes…and eventually nightwear and lingerie… Regina’s work brought her a very subtle kind of memorialisation [adding] her initials to the labels…” - Regina Zielinski (nee Feldman), page 274
Author
Lucy ADLINGTON

Lucy Adlington is a writer and historian specialising in women’s history. She graduated from Cambridge University, with an MA from York University, in the UK.

Her previous non-fiction history, The Dressmakers of Auschwitz, has been translated into 22 languages.

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