July 30, 2018
Based on a true story, Morris’s debut fictionalizes the romance between two concentration camp prisoners during WWII. In 1942, Lale, a Slovakian Jew, is given the position of tattooist, tasked with numbering the arm of every new inmate who enters Auschwitz-Birkenau. He uses his position to procure black market items, which he trades away in return for favors. One day, he tattoos the arm of a young woman named Gita and promptly falls in love with her. They begin meeting on Sundays, the only day of rest in the camps. He vows to Gita that he will marry her when they are freed, a boast that Gita is dubious of but nevertheless clings to. Lale even becomes something of a guardian angel to Gita, providing her with penicillin when she contracts typhus. Separated at the end of the war by the fleeing SS, Lale and Gita set out to find one another again in postwar Europe. To many, this book will be most appreciated for its powerful evocation of the everyday horrors of life as a prisoner in a concentration camp, while others will be heartened by the novel’s message of how true love can transcend even the most hellishly inhuman environments. This is a perfect novel for book clubs and readers of historical fiction.
October 23, 2017
This novel is based on an incredible true story of resilience, loss and survival—the result of years of interviews between Heather Morris and Holocaust survivor Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov. The Tattooist of Auschwitz is the story of the charming, dapper and Jewish Lale, who survives at Auschwitz by becoming the tattooist—tetovierer—and permanently marking his fellow prisoners with their numbers. One day, as he is inking 34902 onto a young woman’s arm, he looks up and falls in love with her. It is his determination to live a life beyond the concentration camps with this young woman, Gita, that sustains him through many horrific years. Though Lale’s survival and his enduring love for Gita is a triumphant and incredible tale, this novelised version—through no fault of Lale’s—falls somewhat flat. The prose is unimaginative and hardly transporting for the reader, and it lacks depth. Morris shares details about the historical research and interview scene-setting at the end, and they raise some fascinating questions about survivor guilt and complicity, but these issues are not interrogated in a meaningful way. The Tattooist of Auschwitz could have been better told, but it is a tale of love and triumph over the most hideous of circumstances that will appeal to readers of historical fiction and inspiring true stories.
Portia Lindsay is the general manager of the Mudgee Readers’ Festival