The Tattooist of Auschwitz

There are many factors that play into how I got to this book.

Let me start with my world history class. Eight years ago.

We were watching a film about the Holocaust. I had heard of it before in previous classes, but watching it–

To this day, the images are carved deep into my memory. The skeletal bodies, somehow still alive, still breathing. Watching prisoners dump bodies of their fellow inmates into ditches. 

It was heavy. It made me physically sick, watching these black and white images of people–actual living people–step out of liberated Auschwitz, emaciated, starving, all but dead.

Fast forward about three years. I’m sitting in one of my college classes. It’s an English class that’s supposed to help us know how to teach reading in our future classrooms. And on this particular day, our professor told us about his amazing experience at a Holocaust conference one summer. He got to hear first hand experiences from the survivors of the death camps.

In that moment, for me, the Holocaust became very, very heavy. I thought this was worse than watching a horror film. Because people actually lived this. People actually treated other human beings like this. And they considered it “okay.” It was imperative, in fact.

A few weeks ago, I was trying to find more books for my students. Books that they would find interesting. I created a survey with many different topics for them to choose from. I told them to circle anything that they were interested in or wanted to know more about. And the Holocaust was one of them. One of my coworkers noticed the surveys and the next day, brought in a pile of books. Books from her personal library. Most of them were books about the Holocaust. These books were important to her. Part of her.

I read through a few of them, but The Tattooist of Auschwitz was the first one I picked up. In fact, it’s the first book about the Holocaust I’ve read, even though I have heard of Night and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and The Diary of Anne Frank. 

It’s a powerful story. A powerful true story.

Lale Sokolov is a 25-year-old Jew from Krompachy, Slovakia. Dressed in his pressed suit, clean white shirt, and tie, he doesn’t realize where he’s actually going. Auschwitz. Upon arriving in April 1942, after a long and awful haul, crammed in a cattle boxcar with other men, he hears, “Welcome to Auschwitz.” He’s “been forced from his home and transported like an animal, now surrounded by heavily armed SS.” And he is “now being welcomed–welcomed!” 

The first lesson–and only lesson–he learns is “Work makes you free.” If you work hard, you’ll be set free. Of course, the only rule they have is a lie. Lale learns that soon enough. For a while, he follows his own advice: “Do as you’re told. And always observe.”

His head is shaved, he is stripped from his clothes, he is given a number–tattooed quickly onto the skin of his arm–and forced to work. 

Lale speaks many different languages, which saves him from the hard labor that he is initially forced to do. He is taken in by the tattooist of Auschwitz (another prisoner) and his new job is to tattoo the numbers onto the arms of his fellow prisoners. He is disgusted by it–especially when he must tattoo on the arms of women. 

The book is a fairly fast-paced and easy read. The chapters are segmented into easy-to-digest sections. And yet the content is not easy to digest.

He sees and smells death in almost every form possible. Starvation. Guards shooting out of boredom. Mass cremations after people are gassed to death. Lale experiences horror after horror. 

Then Gita comes. When he sees her, he knows that he is in love. And perhaps it is the one thing that keeps hope aflame.

This is a beautifully written book, though it reveals the horrific truth of what really happened in Auschwitz. 

While I was reading, I had to do a lot of research to better understand some things–like who certain people were. It was actually really hard for me to read what people like Dr. Mengele did to children (which is depicted in the book). I found myself fuming. I was filled with this hatred. Loathing. Disgust. Abhorrence. I had heard stories of Holocaust survivors who were able to forgive those who had imprisoned them. Now, after reading just this one book, I’m even more amazed by their ability to actually, truly forgive. I really don’t know if I could do that.

In fact, what this book shows me most of all is that I am so, so, so, so weak.

And I think that’s what makes it such a good book. I know a book is good when it elicits strong emotions from me. When I find myself physically, verbally, and/or emotionally reacting.

You know what else I think?

I think that students–and anyone, really–should be required to read accounts like this instead of the textbooks. These books don’t give you straight, dry facts. The facts are embedded in the human experience that the reader is enveloped in. And that’s much, much more powerful.

 

You can get this book at ThriftBooks, Target, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.

To see other books about the Holocaust, click here.

To view “What Americans Know About the Holocaust”, check out this page provided by  Pew Research Center.

To learn more about the Holocaust, check out the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 

Title image found on https://www.smalltownsociety.com/smalltown-calendar/2018/1/27/yom-hashoah-holocaust-memorial-day

And let me know what you think of my very first review!