Trudie Strobel (F / Ukraine, 1938), Holocaust survivor
Trudie Strobel (F / Ukraine, 1938), Holocaust survivor
- KEYWORDS: <Lodz Ghetto> <Auschwitz>
- MEMOIRS : Stitched & Sewn (2020), by Jody Savin
Biography
Trudie Strobel was 1938 on a kolkhoz (collective farm) in Ukraine. Before she was born, her father was taken away by Soviet authorities, never to be seen again. Her mother, Masha, supported them by sewing and repairing the scarce garments owned by villagers. Yet the Nazi invasion overturned their precarious life when German soldiers came to their house and put them on a 750-mile march to a camp near Lodz and then to Auschwitz. It was Masha’s talent that saved them. As Masha sewed, under unspeakably harsh conditions, her child was allowed to cling to her side.
Both Trudie and her mother survived the Holocaust, spending a long time in a displaced persons camp and then making their way to America.
In 1947 she emigrated to the United States and studied English literature in New York and German literature at Berkeley. She worked as a college professor of German literature in Cleveland, Ohio, Kansas, and Virginia, and at Princeton and UC Irvine.
Book : Stitched & Sewn (2020), by Jody Savin
- Jody Savin, Stitched & Sewn: The Life-Saving Art of Holocaust Survivor Trudie Strobel (2020).
"A child survivor of the Holocaust, Trudie Strobel settled in California, raising a family and never discussing the horrors she witnessed. After her children grew up, the trauma of her youth caught up with her, triggering a paralyzing depression. A therapist suggested that Trudie attempt to draw the memories that haunted her, and she did―but with needle and thread instead of a pencil. Resurrecting the Yemenite stitches of her ancestors, and using the skills taught by her mother, whose master seamstress talent saved their lives in the camps, Trudie began by stitching vast tableaus of her dark and personal memories of the Holocaust. What began as therapy exploded into works of breathtaking art, from narrative tapestries of Jewish history rendered in exacting detail to portraits of remarkable likeness, and many of her works are now in public and private collections ... In Stitched & Sewn, Jody Savin tells the dramatic story of how a needle and thread saved Trudie Strobel’s life twice, and Ann Elliott Cutting’s photographs showcase Trudie’s remarkable works of art. With a foreword by Michael Berenbaum, author of eighteen books, co-founder of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and co-producer of the Academy Award–winning documentary One Survivor Remembers."--Publisher description.