The Tattooist Of Auschwitz

This book is based on the first hand testimony of Lale Sokolov who is a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp that was operating during Hitler's reign from 1940-1945.

The author, Heather Morris, has personally said that this book is a work of fiction, even though it is based on a true story, and that she wrote it for young adults so that we could know what happened and do our best to prevent anything like that from ever happening again.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz was released in January 2018 and has a 4.3/5 on Goodreads and has also received the Audie Award for Fiction.

The story is about a young Lale who is taken to the concentration camp for being a Jew and forced to work, since he is well educated and can speak a lot of languages he tries his best to raise among the ranks so that he can secure himself in a position of power and somehow survive the horrific camp. Briefly after arriving he witnesses a brutal murder of one of the prisoners by the guards and he makes a promise to himself.

"I will live to leave this place. I will walk out a free man."

He then begins his work of becoming the tattooists assistant as it seems that he has a few more privileges than the other inmates but he resents the work because of the pain and permanence that he is inflicting on the other unfortunate souls who are brought there. During his time of assisting he tattoos a young girl whose eyes shine with life, even in this place of death, and he immediately falls in love. Now that he has met Gita he has someone to care for and suddenly he becomes an operator. He bartered, stole and procured for so many inmates and I honestly think that a lot of them would have died without him there.

I don't want to ruin the story, because it really is one of the best books that I have ever read and has inspired one of my own short stories. I think that a lot of people forget what our ancestors have gone through, maybe they weren't there or they didn't know what was happening, but as Heather Morris said, we should know what happened and as the future generation we should ensure that it will never happen again.

I honestly cannot even imagine being in their positions but I do know that they must be the strongest people in the world to have endured those horrors and still have seen a light at the end of the tunnel.

If you're interested in the concentration camps, in how the people who survived there experienced it, you should definitely read this book. I couldn't put it down.

Thanks for reading xx