The soldier, Jerome Klein, gave Glucksman a bar of soap and an Army uniform to change into. It was Glucksman's first shower in six years.
I am surprised he does not "remember" using a bar of soap made from his family members.
New Haven Tailor Shares Story Of Holocaust Survival
By KIM MARTINEAU | Special to The Courant
August 28, 2008
NOW 81, Sidney Glucksman has no plans to retire from the tailoring business he started with his wife, Libby, 52 years ago in New Haven after arriving in the U.S. Sixty-four years ago, as a prisoner in the concentration camp at Dachau, Germany, Glucksman was sewing swastikas on Nazi uniforms. (BOB MACDONNELL / HARTFORD COURANT / August 14, 2008)
NEW HAVEN — - The ring on Sidney Glucksman's finger is made of gold and engraved with his initials. It was the first thing he bought himself after he was freed from Dachau. In the concentration camp, a number had defined him. The ring marked his return to being human.
"I never take it off," he said recently, seated at his dining room table. "It makes me feel like I have something to remember."
It might be tempting to forget the Holocaust, one of humanity's darkest chapters, but Glucksman believes he was spared so that he could bear witness. And so for decades he has dug into the past to share his experience with schoolchildren and his customers at Sidney's Expert Cleaners and Tailors. Now, as a documentary is being made about his life, his story may reach a wider audience.
"Threads" is the film's working title, after the striped, threadbare uniform Glucksman wore as a Nazi prisoner. It also signifies the many lives he has touched since then in his old-fashioned tailor shop in New Haven that has the warmth of a neighborhood bar.
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Sidney Glucksman Photos The man making the movie about Glucksman's life, James Campbell, is a state social worker who began dabbling in filmmaking to humanize his disabled clients. After reading about the Holocaust, Campbell wanted to turn his lens on one survivor, to show what the world lost in the 6 million Jews who were systematically exterminated.
On a recent Sunday, Glucksman and his wife, Libby, gathered their family for brunch while the cameras rolled. A boom stretched over the platters of noodle kugel and bagels and lox as their two daughters and grandchildren reminisced.
In the past year, Glucksman has filled hours of tape with his own memories that begin with the Germans arriving at his Polish synagogue one day and executing the older men. At 12, he was taken away from school, never to see his parents again. He worked as a slave laborer, building army barracks, and at Dachau, he sewed swastikas on Nazi uniforms.
At the camp, he remembers mothers separated from babies, walking naked to the "showers" to be gassed, their babies thrown into sacks and beaten or tossed in the air for target practice. Filming Glucksman as he recounted the story recently at a local high school, Campbell's 12-year-old son, Jordan, ran to the bathroom to be sick.
In April 1945, the camp was liberated and an American soldier, spotting the yellow star on Glucksman's uniform, addressed him in German.
"I'm Jewish, too," the soldier told the disbelieving prisoner.
"I thought all the Jews in the whole world were dead," Glucksman remembers thinking.
The soldier, Jerome Klein, gave Glucksman a bar of soap and an Army uniform to change into. It was Glucksman's first shower in six years.
From Dachau, he made his way to a "displaced persons camp" where he met his wife, Libby, a Ukrainian Jew who had worked for the underground Russian resistance. With Klein's help, the couple immigrated to America and settled in New Haven. Glucksman found work with a local tailor and eventually saved enough money to open his own store.
The narrow shop is anchored by a retro-looking sewing machine on one side and a serpentine rack of cellophane-sheathed clothing on the other.
Libby is a short woman with a stern but motherly bearing. She answers the phone and fills out tickets. Sidney is nearly bald, with a tape measure draped over his neck. He sits at his machine, foot on pedal, sliding cloth toward the bobbing needle.
A patrol car is parked outside. After a recent shooting nearby, the police now keep watch over the store. Sometimes, the cops join the couple for lunch. The toaster is removed from the closet then and a bag of tomatoes, sandwich rolls and roast turkey appear as if by magic. Lunch is taken on a workbench covered in paper towels.
Doctors, judges and some of Connecticut's most influential Democrats entrust their alterations to this 81-year-old tailor. U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro calls Glucksman a "tailoring genius," a term that makes him beam with pride. "If I look at a garment on the person I can tell right away what I need to do," he likes to say.
His talent is obvious to anyone who has ever struggled to sew on a button. With a few flicks of an X-Acto blade, Glucksman reduced a pair of dress pants to ribbons of cloth. His customer had lost weight and needed the waist taken in 2 inches. Within minutes, Glucksman had reassembled the pants, hiding the extra cloth inside the seams — just in case. "I try not to tear out too much material," he said gently. "Most of them, they gain it back."
The personalized attention is unusual in an age of clothing labels that read "Made in China." That may be why so many customers have become close friends, stopping in even when they don't need work done. "It's like going to your parents' house," said New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr. "You've gotta go, even when you don't need to."
The couple's access to city hall is why New Haven today has free trolley cars rolling through downtown. Vacationing in Maine one summer, Glucksman saw the trolleys and for years, begged DeStefano to buy some. The mayor did, naming one trolley "Sidney and Libby" in their honor.
Despite their age, they have no plans to retire. "We're not golfers," said Libby. "We're not travelers. What would we do at home?"
After all, tailoring is a dying art — and what would their customers do? "It takes longer to become a good tailor than a good doctor," said Glucksman, while shortening a pair of pants.
"In truth, there's more doctors than tailors," his wife added.
Even more than the craftsmanship, the shop draws customers for its sense of community. Campbell calls it a general store in a city. And if Campbell's film about one Holocaust survivor has any theme, that warmth and generosity is it.
"[Sidney] reminds them of a simpler time," he said. "He reminds them of kindness and hope."
