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.
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Of course, receiving your first tailoring lesson inside a Nazi concentration camp was hardly the ideal apprenticeship. I would have much preferred to hone my craft on Savile Row or in the mills of Milan. Looking back, though, that moment in the camps marked the beginning of the rest of my life. Strangely enough, two ripped Nazi shirts helped this Jew build America’s most famous and successful custom-suit company.
God has a wonderful sense of humor.
Martin Greenfield’s memoir “Measure of a Man“ is available now.
