Happy Birthday to the world-renowned Master Tailor, Martin Greenfield!
Born Maximilian Grünfeld on August 9, 1928, in Pavlovo, a small village in what was then Czechoslovakia and is now Ukraine. At 15 years old, he and his family were rounded up and sent to Auschwitz. Martin was the only one of them to survive. It was during the war that he learned to sew and discovered the power of clothing. Martin accidentally ripped the shirt of a Nazi officer; after he was severely beaten, he took the discarded shirt and wore it under his prisoner uniform, which made him feel more like himself again. By the end of the war, Greenfield was transferred to Buchenwald, where he was eventually liberated by the US Army in April 1945. At 19 years old, he immigrated to the US in 1947 and got his first job as a floor boy at the GGG clothing factory in NY, eventually establishing himself as a Master Tailor.
The world-famous clothier has made custom suits for various public figures, but most notably, for 6 US presidents. The first was President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was also present at Buchenwald in 1945 to supervise the liberation. It was there the two met, and Eisenhower shook Greenfield’s hand. In 2014, Greenfield published his memoir, “Measure of a Man: From Auschwitz Survivor to Presidents’ Tailor”. This week, Greenfield celebrated his 95th birthday! #MazalTov
