Zack Bornstein

I know him as Uncle Nathan. As my Nana’s stoic, kind-eyed brother-in-law, whose name was sewn into the lining of my Bar Mitzvah suit. But to Colonel Mendel Marshak, the Soviet overseer of defeated Germany, Nathan Freisinger is the only tailor in East Berlin fit to fashion his leather jacket. And the suit maker Stalin now wants for himself. But 5 years earlier in the Lithuanian ghettos, Nathan’s skill as a tailor is the only thing keeping him and his beloved wife Mina alive, before they’re ripped apart and sent to camps. In the final months of WWII, Nathan survives the death march from Dachau by escaping into the forest. Fueled only by farm scraps and whispers of the Nazi’s fall, he limps towards Berlin. There, he finds ruins and despair, but also hope—his presumed-dead wife may be alive. Nathan dares to negotiate with the ominous Russian liberators, bargaining his tailoring skills to find his long-lost love. His craftsmanship secures not only the rescue of his wife and her sister (my Nana), but also a place as the celebrated head tailor of post-war Berlin. But the joys of reunion are short-lived as a summons arrives from the Kremlin—run Stalin’s factories or face a Siberian Gulag. As soldiers surround his factory, Nathan must thread his smallest needle yet—a plan to escape the Soviet regime with an unlikely ally and a disguise of his own design. THE TAILOR is a testament to the unbreakable Jewish spirit and the power of a good coat. Think THE PIANIST meets PHANTOM THREAD.