Everyone knows the story of the holocaust. The millions of prisoners captured and detained during World War II still horrifies the world and we also all know the story of Anne Frank. Anne was sent first to the largest of the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and transferred to Bergen-Belsen only to fall ill and die weeks before its liberation.
There are so many stories that have still be left untold. Up until now the story of Lale Sokolov was one of them. Lale was one of the many in the first transport of ‘prisoners’ from Slovakia and remained at Auschwitz-Birkenau for nearly four years.
This week marks seventy-three years since the camp was finally liberated in 1945. Luckily, Lale was able to continue on past his experience, travelling around and finally settling in Australia with his wife Gita until his death.
Heather Morris tells Lale’s story in ‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’, constructing the novel from years worth of interviews, in a way that is simple and to the point. The book is really only fictionalised through the dwindling memory of an aging Lale and the added description which Heather uses to convey the horrors of them camp.
While the story at its core is truly heart-wrenching, it is simply written. The love story of Lale and Gita is told in a straightforward third person that unfortunately does not hold as much depth in this simplicity as it could have achieved. It makes for a quick read with details that regrettably do not stick with you as a reader much beyond the final page.
Successful it is in telling the story of a man who gave himself up to the Nazis over the rest of family, getting horribly sick in Auschwitz only to be taken in by the tattooist and then to be given this job. It is less successful however at truly revealing these moments in history as something with a much larger context. With more depth and detail this could have been a tender story, leaving a fierce impact.
Among the simple sentences, there are some moments of beauty that do strike you. Heather explores the days after Lale’s recovery from illness in a way that conveys the uncertainty of someone in such an unfamiliar situation, pushed away from your life and forced into a world that rejects all humanity. “He falls asleep to the soulful sound of Hebrew chants from those who still cling to faith.”
Where ‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’ will surely succeed in a brilliant way is as a teaching resource. As a teenager in the beginning of high school a book like this would have given more that I received from the prescribed reading that I was given, a list of books that I more often than not did not read.
‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’ will be released in Australia on the 1st of February.
thenameisgirl.wordpress.com 