The Tattooist of Auschwitz

What an outstanding tale by novelist Morris.

The book tells the true story of Slovakian Jew Lale Sokolov, who falls in love with a young woman that he was forced to tattoo upon her arrival at Auschwitz concentration camp in WWII.

The book rocked me as I asked again and again the question: "How can humans do this to each other?"  

This is a tender and often heart-wrenching book, despite unimaginable evils that transpired in Auschwitz-Birkenau during World War II.

This book is a testament to human resiliency and courage. Here is a tender love story between Lale, a Jewish prisoner, whose Nazi captors assign him with the abhorrent task of permanently tattooing his fellow prisoners, and Gita whom he first meets when he is about to permanently mark her with a tattoo.

Heather Morris has done an admirable job documenting her interviews with holocaust survivors and bringing to life, both the evil and human side of mankind.

This is a novel about an improbable relationship carried out under Hitler’s nose at Auschwitz, where over a million people were murdered.

Before writing The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Heather Morris interviewed Lale Sokolov, who lived in Australia during the latter part of his life.

Lale told the story about how he was assigned by the Germans to place tatoos on the arms of people entering Auschwitz—a concentration camp built for mass extermination. This gave him certain privileges—including access to food—that enabled him to help Gita, another prisoner who he fell in love with.

Ms. Morris expertly weaves Lale’s story into… show more.

Although set in such a terrible place this book tells the story of one young man’s hope and resilience. The tattooist’s true life experience is sympathetically used by the author as a base for the storyline and it makes for a very unsettling but compulsive read. I like that there isn’t too much description and yet I still felt the bleakness of the camp and the desperation of its prisoners. The love story running throughout the book helped to show the strength of the human spirit in spite of inhumane conditions.

This book is written from an incredible perspective of a Slovakian Jew, who because he speaks multiple languages, is forcibly put to work to permanently mark via tattoo his fellow prisoners. With all of the negativity surrounding his physical and emotional world, he finds love in a fellow prisoner, whom he met while marking her arm. The way the author is able to weave a beautiful love story throughout this nightmare, really exemplifies the importance of hope and resistance.