E

ight fashion drawings, rendered in color long
ago by designer Hedvika (Hedy) Strnad, were
transformed into striking, fully sewn outfits in
2013. The work was painstaking, taking 10 months as
seamstresses completed an evening gown, two coats,
two suits and a few daytime dresses, all fresh, elegant
and urbane.
The seamstresses — unable to consult with the
designer on fabrics, pleats and other details — relied on
the drawings as the only tangible legacy the designer
had left, and the circumstances surrounding them
uncovered a story that many felt compelled to tell.
In a letter dated Dec. 11, 1939, Paul Strnad, Hedy’s
banker husband, wrote a letter from his home in Prague
to his cousin Alvin in Milwaukee. Stamped with Nazi
censor clearance, the letter told that the Germans had
just invaded Czechoslovakia and the couple had lost
their jobs. Paul wrote that Hedy was a very talented
dress designer in the hopes that Alvin could find her a
job in Milwaukee and the pair could receive affidavits
to get out of Czechoslovakia; he included a copy of the
designs with the letter.
Alvin was unable to secure a visa for his cousins,
likely because of the strict quota the U.S. enforced.
Before receiving a response, Paul and Hedy were sent to
Theresienstadt then on to the Warsaw ghetto; they are
believed to have perished there or at Treblinka, when
they were about 40 years old.
The story of Hedy and Paul is expressed in detail as
the fashions — displayed on mannequins in lifelike
runway poses — are joined by letters, murals and a
video presentation, all on view through Dec. 29 at the
Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills.
The exhibit, Stitching History From the Holocaust, is
on loan from the Jewish Museum Milwaukee (JMM),
established in the city where relatives of the couple had
moved. The full display was developed after Burton
Strnad, Alvin’s son, found Paul’s letter with Hedy’s
sketches in his mother’s home when she moved.
“The exhibit personalizes history and gives us a way
to reflect on the Czech Jewish experience, which I don’t
think we do very often,” says Ellie Gettinger, education
director at the JMM. “In Czechoslovakia, Jews were a
very secularized and assimilated population.
“Generally, when we study the Holocaust, we focus on
the mass scale of it with Germany and Poland tending
to be the geographical touchpoints. This exhibit gives
an expanding sense of vision into the Holocaust geo-
graphically.”
Long before there was a JMM, Burton Strnad donated
his findings to the Milwaukee Jewish Historical Society
in 1997. After the museum was opened in 2008 and the
materials were being shown, a visitor suggested that
the intent of the sketches should be realized by sewing
the elegant clothing that was planned. Administrators,
impressed with the idea, contracted costumers from the
Milwaukee Repertory Theater.
“Seamstresses went above and beyond their initial
contract,” Gettinger says. “Jessica Yaeger, the lead person
on the project, is a fabulous costumer and sewer, and
her particular passion is for 1940s fashion. She is a USO
[United Service Organizations] reenactor and collects
these sorts of fashions.
“The sewers had to do extensive research because
they didn’t see the backs of the dresses in the sketches.
They went to costume archives, found patterns online
and looked through old magazines. All the zippers are
vintage, and the fabric is silk-screened so it’s an exact
match for what is in the pictures.”
While visitors are asked not to touch the outfits, they

are invited to feel swatches of the fabrics arranged on a
display table. Also on view is a sewing machine reminis-
cent of the times.
Additional research to go beyond the dresses includ-
ed the use of the Yad Vashem database and contacts
with a niece, Brigitte Neumann Rohaczek, who was
saved through Kindertransport operations and lives in
Europe.
It was learned that Hedy ran a dress shop and super-
vised a staff of dressmakers.
“There were hundreds of dressmaking shops like hers
in Prague,” Gettinger says. “Many of them were staffed
by Jews. We hope, one day, to find the location of Hedy’s
shop.”
Among the display items is a family tree diagram to
point out the relationship of the Prague Strnads and
the Milwaukee Strnads. There also are wall murals of
enlarged family photos taken in Europe.
A catalog and teacher’s guide can be accessed on
the exhibit’s website, stitchinghistory.org. The catalog
includes seven essays from scholars exploring different
elements of the story, from the Czech Jewish experience
to fashion history.
First shown in Milwaukee in 2014, the exhibit has
traveled to Madison, New York and Miami and eventu-
ally will be on permanent view in the city where it was
developed. About 10,000 people saw the display at the
JMM.
“I’m excited to have new and different elements come
out of the traveling exhibit,” Gettinger says. “In Madison,
design-school students created dresses inspired by
Hedy. In Florida, there was a one-act play imagining
dialogue between Hedy and Paul as they were trying to
escape Czechoslovakia.”
Michigan will have a more realistic element as display
cases present the story of a local woman who survived
because of her dressmaking skills. Fryda Bester Fleish,
of Oak Park, was forced into labor at a German factory
in the Sudetenland, where flax was made into thread.
Family photos, including those taken in a return trip
to the area, are part of that display.
Fleish, nearing 90, and her daughter, Esther Gold
of Farmington Hills, both volunteer at the Holocaust
Memorial Center. Fleish has helped in the gift shop, and
Gold gives time to the library.
Gold is proud that her mother, liberated by the
Russians, now uses needlework skills to benefit the
Jewish community. She knits hats and lap blankets for
Hadassah projects.
“Docents will give a sense of the broad history of the
Strnads and give a sense of the people and talent lost
because of the Holocaust,” Gettinger says. “Hedy and her
husband were people with connections and should have
been able to immigrate. They had [resources for] finan-
cial security and sponsors in America.
“We’ve had so many people say this story is like the
experiences of a [relative], and we’re glad to know that a
woman active in Michigan was able to survive because
of her skills as a dressmaker.” •.

details

FACING PAGE: A room of the exhibit; Hedy
Strnad’s eight sketches, including a gray
evening gown accented with faux crimson
flowers. THIS PAGE, TOP TO BOTTOM: Hedy
and Paul Strnad. The back of the envelope
that carried Paul’s plea. Fryda Fleish and
her granddaughters Allison Gold and Dayna
Elrom.

Stitching History From the Holocaust will be on view through
Dec. 29 at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington
Hills. $5-$8; free for uniform service personnel. Docent-led
tours are scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Sundays, July 23 and Aug.
13, and 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 28. For information on the local
programming, call (248) 553-2400 or visit holocaustcenter.
org. For information on the exhibit and the catalog, go to
stitchinghistory.org.

jn

July 6 • 2017

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