The Tattooist of Auschwitz

Genre: Fiction

This is the story of Lale (Ludwig) Sokolov nee Isenberg, 26 years old, Jewish and from Slovakia at the start of World War II. Lale is rounded up with a group of other Jewish men and is sent to Auschwitz, a concentration camp. There, he is lucky enough to get a “job” as the tattooist (prisoners were tattooed with a number on the inside of their forearms). This job affords him some liberties in the camp, including having extra portions of food and access to certain parts of the camp that others don’t have. Lale meets Gita at the camp and falls in love. This is the story of their love and perseverance and how they learned to navigate this cruel world together. This is a true story told by Lale himself to the author shortly before he passed away in 2006.

I had to think about this book for a bit and let it simmer in order to figure out why I just didn’t love it. As a story, it was OK, but I felt real ambivalence towards Lale, which is difficult to say, considering his circumstances. I think the reason I struggled with this book in general, is that to me, stories of the holocaust, world war II and the Nazis must educate as it is always shocking to me how many people don’t know about what happened just 80 or so years ago. When stories like this book take the perspective of an individual and examines their personalities and attributes in the context of the holocaust it downgrades the reality of what happened. What I mean is that fictionalized stories of WWII pale in comparison to real life. And, I think that’s partially because the denigration, abuse, hate, torture and murder happened to millions of people. Attempting to tell the real-life story of one feels almost disrespectful to the multitudes of people who lost their lives due to nothing else but their religion, political affiliation, country of origin or simply because the Nazis felt like it.

All that said, I ask myself, then, why did I really like The Nightingale, Night and some other holocaust books (and Night, in particular, is very much about an autobiography). And that’s where I go back to my usual criteria for a good story: character development, good writing, did I learn something new and entertainment factor. I think that ultimately, the reason I didn’t love this book is that I didn’t connect with Lale. I felt that Morris told us little about who he really was as a person (I learned most about him from his son's letter at the end of the book). If you're going to write a story about a person (in the context of WWII), you must make his personality compelling for the reader, and not just his circumstances. Maybe digging deeper about who he was prior to the war would have made me appreciate him more? I’m not sure.

You know, I always think of myself as an odd book reviewer, because I rarely, if ever, tell someone not to read a book that I didn’t love. Because books meet us where we are. What I don’t like, you might love. So, I’m happy to share my opinions but beyond that, it’s up to you. With this review, I will add that if you don’t know much about WWII, I think it’s so important that you learn what hate, racism and antisemitism in its most evil form look like, and this book might teach you something new. This all in the hope that we may never forget and never repeat.