The Tattooist of Auschwitz

I made the mistake of picking this book up right before bed, I couldn’t put it down. I was transported to a time where I didn’t want to be, sucked into the world that Lale and Gita had to suffer through. I must say I didn’t shed a tear, so I’m very proud of myself. But while no tears fell, my heart remained inevitably broken.

I’m at a loss for words. I don’t know what more to say about this book and yet I have so much I want to share. It just can’t seem to be translated into words.

There are many stories of the Holocaust and many are left untold. I think the main one most people would know is The Diary of Anne Frank. It was a mandatory read for me during my school years. While as a teen myself just as Anne ( hence why I think they had us read it in the in 8th grade) I found the similarity to be uncanny. Now here I was yet again but I could find the similarity with Lale or Gita. I think because they were adults and they were fully aware of the surroundings and what was to come of them that I couldn’t see how love could be found in such a place. I’m not saying that it couldn’t have happened because it did. I’m saying that I just don’t think, scratch that, I couldn’t have as positive of an outlook as Lale did. He really found a diamond amongst the rubble. (Literally and figuratively)

The writing style was odd, I didn’t mind it, in fact, it made it feel as though you were sitting with Lale himself as he was transcribing the events of his life that lead him to survival.

You get more from this than just the story of the select survivors of the Auschwitz. Throughout the story as in the life, they lived you suffer through the pointless and mindless deaths of fellow prisoners who are met along the way. You cross paths with those who have given up entirely, those who such as Lale will do whatever is necessary to survivor, those who help but only at a cost, those who only followed the orders given those them and those willing to pay the ultimate price to protect just to save one life.

Thank you, NetGalley and Bonnie Publishing Australia.

Once I picked up this book I was unable to put it down. I ended up reading it in one day which I am almost never able to do!

It is a remarkable and heartbreaking story based on the experience of a survivor. I believe that these stories are so incredibly important for us to remember and continue to retell… and this book does that beautifully.

I’m still recovering from reading this phenomenal story about a boy who meets a girl and how they fall in love. Simple. Yes, it’s the sort of story told many times over the ages. Except for one thing. This tale is set in the most horrific place ever conjured up in the world – a concentration camp of pure hell. What makes this even more incredible is that this is not make-believe – it all happened. How Heather Morris painstakingly researched and put together this story is incredible. She manages to take Lale and Gita’s story and weave a thing of beauty, survival, drama and love.

Lale is a survivor with wit and determination whose job is to tattoo numbers on the arms of each prisoner as they are brought in to Auschwitz. He meets Gita when he tattoos her arm. Against all odds their love grows as they both survive numerous scrapes and almost death. Lale gains trust from his captives and uses his position to not only survive but help as many as he can.

Heather Morris leads us into the camp and gives a tour of brutality, death and inhumanity. At times, it’s almost too much and then she deftly gives us the relief of Lale’s antics – sneaking a kiss from Gita or using a dopey SS officer to smuggle letters to her. There are tears and smiles as we quickly grow to love this couple.

We are reminded however that history has a habit of repeating itself as with all wars since, continues to cause insurmountable misery and grief for so many. Only a week ago refugees were adrift on the Mediterranean Sea fleeing from war.

Lale and Gita’s story needed to be told and I’m grateful to Heather Morris for persisting and bringing it to us. This is a book which will stay with me for a very long time and is highly recommended.

Every once in a while, I stumble across a book that I can’t put down until it’s over. This is one of those books. I picked up this book before work with the intention of reading just a chapter in the few minutes I had – when I was forced to put it down, I thought about it, wanting to get back to it and the next time I picked it up, I read until the end. This story is told through an omniscient narrator which gives the reader some distance from the inner feelings of the character. In a way, that distance makes the intimate horrors of the prison camp even more real and heartbreaking. I didn’t know anything about this book when I picked it up and I’m glad. Read as a work of fiction, it is an amazing story. Read as a “based on true events” book, means delving into the research and determining where the author got it right and wrong. That said, I’m not bothered by some of the smaller inconsistencies – the bulk of the information about the two main characters came from the memory of an old man talking about the horrors he endured as a young man. There is no reason to assume he would get every detail correct. I know I wouldn’t. Overall, this is a compelling, horrifying, and sometimes uplifting story of love against the backdrop of one of humanities biggest atrocities. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes literary fiction and who wants to know more about the human side of the Holocaust.

The book is a fictionalized, powerful account, set during a period of history that must never be forgotten. As the story opens, Lale Sokolov is a dapper twenty-five-year-old ladies’ man who has been raised by his mother and sister to dote on and respect women. He enjoys female companion, but has not yet found the woman with whom he wants to spend his life. He is shocked at the manner in which he and the other men on the train are treated, realizing that his life will never be the same, a reality that is reinforced when a number — 32407 — is forcibly tattooed onto his arm. “He grasps his arm, staring at the number. How can someone do this to another human being? He wonders if for the rest of his life, be it short of long, he will be defined by this moment, this irregular number: 32407.” Lale resolves to survive.

Lale’s horror is magnified when he is recruited to assist Pepan, the camp’s Tätowierer. Pepan assures Lale that he can help him survive. “You want me to tattoo other men I don’t think I could do that. Scar someone, hurt someone . . .” Papan convinces Lale by reminding him that if he doesn’t take the job, “someone will who has less soul than you do, and he will hurt these people more.” And so Lale swears to perform the job in the most compassionate way possible, given the circumstances.

Morris relates the various ways in which Lale risked his life to help others, and did indeed survive confinement in place where hope was in short order most of the time. By some, he was branded a “collaborator” but he used his ingenuity and courage to take advantage of opportunities to save as many others as possible, including the beautiful young Gita with whom he instantly falls in love. She refuses to tell him about her past, her family, where she came from, or even her last name. For Gita it is too painful and she wants to forget because when she is with Lale she is able to escape reality for a few moments. She promises to tell him on the day they leave Auschwitz, but insists they “have no future.” Lale refuses to give up, telling her about his vow to survive. “We will survive and make a life where we are free to kiss when we want to, make love when we want to.”

At its core, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is a love story, illustrating the power of love to provide comfort and distraction through dreams of and plans for the future, inspire selfless and risky action, and sustain and inspire during the darkest hours when it appears that hope is only for the naive or unenlightened.

Remaining steadfastly committed to his vow is a challenge for Lale, of course. At times he feels nothing but despair, wondering how he is even “still breathing, when so many aren’t?” Lale falls into an existence that is comfortable as compared to so many others because, as the Tätowierer, he works with a handful of other prisoners and is removed from the most inhumane conditions to which others are subjected. About that, he feels guilt, especially when he sees others die before his eyes or be brutally herded onto trucks with the knowledge that he will never see them again. Like Lale, Gita is painfully aware of the number of people who have passed through the camps because she works in the office processing paperwork.

Lale did, in fact, find Gita after the liberation of the camps, and they married in October 1945. In the camp, Gita told Lale that someday he would honor all of those lost “by staying alive, surviving this place and telling the world what happened here.” And he did. “I need to be with Gita,” he said. But it was her death that inspired him to at last tell his story. “He wanted it to be recorded so, in his words, ‘it would never happen again.'”

The Tattooist of Auschwitz is difficult to read because of the subject matter, as well as the knowledge that it is largely based upon the actual experiences and observations of Lale, an ordinary man who, like so many others, was thrust into extraordinary and unimaginable circumstances. But therein also lies its strength. Morris relates Lale’s story in a straight-forward, unrelenting manner, detailing how he was stripped of his very identity and assigned a number, along with his freedom, dignity, and possessions, and separated from his beloved family, most of whom he never saw again. Morris details, sans judgment, the things Lale did to survive, challenging readers to question what choices they might make.

Morris did not visit Auschwitz until 2018. Once there, she stood on the concrete step that led down into Crematoria #3 and apologized, on behalf of Lale, to the 1.5 million people exterminated there. “He wrongly felt it was his fault that he couldn’t save the souls who died there,” Morris relates. “Lale’s motto in Auschwitz was, ‘If you wake up in the morning, it is a good day.’ He believed you owed it to yourself and those around you to make the day the best it could be.”

Through Morris, Lale has at last, and for all time, honored those who were lost “telling the world what happened” there.

Many of us are aware of the horrific events that took place at Auschwitz, and for that sole reason, most of us were leery about reading this book. We feared that it was going to be gruesome and depressing. Let me tell you, even though the subject matter is heart-wrenching, the story focuses on the bravery of these prisoners and is uplifting. This was a beautiful, well-written story that gently touched the horrors of Auschwitz. The subject matter was handled delicately, allowing the reader to let the story go as deep as they wanted it to.

It is a love story that takes place amongst the darkest times of two peoples lives, whose main objective is survival. Every day they managed to find something to be thankful for and found goodness in the bad. The bravery these prisoners portrayed and survived to tell their stories is superior. Trust me when I say, We have nothing to complain about.

This is a story that will stay with you for a long time. We should continue to write these kinds of stories to remind us of the sacrifices that were made and to never allow this to happen again. It is the perfect book to introduce high school students to their ancestor’s history and what they endured without horrific descriptions.

After reading this book, I can guarantee, you will probably take a look at your own life and realize that all those things that bother you on a daily basis will suddenly seem so trivial. Be thankful for what you have.

Its hard to say you have enjoyed a book when it is about such a harrowing time in history, If you have read the boy in the stripped pyjamas or watched Schindler’s list or anything regarding this subject then you should already know these books are difficult in their subject matter, but read them we must not just for titillation but the fact this awful event took place. I have been to Auschwitz and I have to say up front it changed me, walking through those gates I could feel the pain and anguish, this is not me been fanciful in my words but truth, to stand in the shadows of such a harrowing place made me count my blessings and thank god that I am alive and well. Heather Morris is a new author for me but this book caught my eye one for the subject matter and no I am not ghoulish or glorify in human suffering but at the same time I like reading about the past after all it is what defines us what makes us what molds us into the people we are good or bad. For me Heather and her narrative, horrific account of peoples lives so tragically and horrifically impacted by the events of the dreadful stain on our time the holocaust, she seems to have beautifully written a piece of history put together so us as the reader can truly acknowledge the price and the pain of these poor people paid in such a horrific circumstances. The book is poignant, very sad and extremely moving at times but at the same time you are filled with courage and determination as these people’s ferocious and tenacious desire to survive against all odds. This account has sensitivity and has been put together with a lot of great thought and care. It’s a great read! I highly recommend it. Thank You Heather Morris for an astonishing read, one that will stay with me for a long time, I think books like this do tend to stay with you long after you have closed the final page, it makes you question what is important and what is not, when we whinge about how awful our lives are, we should be thanking god for the fact we still have one when so so many were denied it.The Tattooist of Auschwitz

What an extraordinary and important book this is. We need as many memories of the Holocaust as we can retain, and this is a moving and ultimately uplifting story of love, loyalties and friendship amidst the horrors of war.

A compelling read as it was a true account of survival. Exploitation is the main theme throughout.

It took me a little while to get into this book. The writing is good, not great, but the characters take over about 75 pages in, and I was hooked. The story is one of the inhumanity of man and the drive for survival. There’s also a touching love story. Two people find each other in the most terrifying and demeaning of places and the bond of their love helps keep them both alive. Stories like Lale’s and Gita’s should be shared and never forgotten.