Martin Greenfield

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Martin Greenfield (born August 9, 1928 in Pavlovo , Czechoslovakia as Maxmilian Grunfeld) is an American master tailor based in Brooklyn , New York City , who specializes in the manufacture of men's suits . He has been described as the finest men's tailor in the United States. His client list includes six US presidents as well as other politicians and celebrities. The company Martin Greenfield Clothiers also has men's suits for the clothing lines DKNY and Rag & Bone and the TV show Boardwalk Empire designed.

Greenfield is a Holocaust survivor . As a youth he was in the Auschwitz concentration camp , where all of his close family members were murdered.

Early youth

Greenfield was born on August 9, 1928 to a Jewish family in the village of Pavlovo in Carpathian Ukraine . At that time it was in the far east of Czechoslovakia. At the age of 14, Greenfield was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp with his parents, two sisters, his brother and his grandparents .

Towards the end of the Second World War , Greenfield was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp together with other Auschwitz prisoners . In April 1945 the US Army stormed the camp and liberated the prisoners. As the soldiers were crossing the camp, Greenfield stopped a young rabbi who was serving as the US Army chaplain and asked him, “ Where was God ? “The rabbi, Herschel Schacter , later told Greenfield that he had never forgotten this question. General Dwight D. Eisenhower later came to oversee the liberation and Greenfield shook hands with him. Even Elie Wiesel , who later through his journalism about concentration camps became famous, then hit Greenfield.

Soon after the liberation from Auschwitz, Greenfield and another youth set out to kill the mayor's wife, who had beaten him before the liberation when he tried to eat rabbit food himself. When they found the woman, she was carrying her newborn, and Greenfield abandoned his plan. For him it was a moment when he “became human again”, he later described.

Greenfield spent the next two years in Europe looking for immediate relatives, but all of them were killed; including his father a week before the liberation, without him knowing anything about it. In 1947, at the age of 19, he boarded a ship for the United States and stayed with wealthy relatives in Baltimore . He then moved to New York City , where an aunt of his lived.

Professional career

In 1947 a Czech immigrant took him to GGG Clothing , a clothing manufacturer in the East Williamsburg district of Brooklyn, where he was hired as a "run boy". Over the next decade he perfected his tailoring skills and reputation. His first big client in the early 1950s was General Eisenhower, who was preparing to run for president.

In 1977 Greenfield bought GGG Clothing and renamed it Martin Greenfield Clothiers . The company had grown from six to 117 employees by 2010.

Greenfield's customers include Presidents Eisenhower , Lyndon B. Johnson , Gerald Ford , Bill Clinton , Barack Obama and Donald Trump , General Colin Powell , actor Paul Newman , Cardinal Edward Egan , athlete Patrick Ewing and New York politician Michael Bloomberg and Raymond Kelly .

Greenfield and his company have worked as men's outfitters for fashion lines such as DKNY and Rag & Bone.

His company also designed the suits for the HBO television show Boardwalk Empire from the 1920s.

Private life

Greenfield married his wife Arlene in 1956. They have two sons, Jay and Tod. Both sons work for Martin Greenfield Clothiers, Jay, his older son, is the Executive Vice President. Martin Greenfield's personal memoir entitled "Measure of a Man: From Auschwitz Survivor to Presidents' Tailor" was published in 2014.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ned Martel: Holocaust documents reveal story behind Obama's tailor . The Washington Post . 5th November 2012.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Ned Martel: Holocaust survivor tailors an American success story . The Washington Post . October 31, 2012.
  3. ^ Matthew Lynch: Meet the Famed Holocaust-Surviving Tailor Who Snuck Advice to Eisenhower in His Suits . Vanity Fair. November 2014.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g Ann Farmer: A Tailor, Called Upon by Designers and Politicians . The New York Times . 5th November 2010.
  5. ↑ Holocaust survivor promised to kill his tormentor - what happened when they came face to face? . GlennBeck.com. 17th November 2014.
  6. ↑ a b http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/05/from-auschwitz-to-the-white-house-one-tailor-s-american-tale.html
personal data
SURNAME Greenfield, Martin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grunfeld, Maxmilian (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American master tailor
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Pavlovo , Czechoslovakia