Release date: September 4th, 2018
Series: The Tattooist of Auschwitz #1
Pages: 272
Genre: Historical fiction
Series: The Tattooist of Auschwitz #1
Pages: 272
Genre: Historical fiction
In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.
Imprisoned for more than two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive.
One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.
A vivid, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful re-creation of Lale Sokolov's experiences as the man who tattooed the arms of thousands of prisoners with what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is also a testament to the endurance of love and humanity under the darkest possible conditions.
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This was a very beautiful story about love and kindness in the most unkind and horrifying conditions. It's also about bravery, pure luck and the great will to stay alive. It's a short book that reads quite quickly.
What bothered me in this book?
- The author focused solely on romance. There's nothing about that, on the contrary, it's great to see that love could be found in such a cruel and hopeless place, but the author, unfortunately, excluded all the other aspects. While reading, I often forgot I was reading a story that's happening in a concentration camp because this was all put aside and poorly shown.
- Impersonal approach. With this, I mean that I didn't really get to meet the people in the book, not even Lale. It's true that in Auschwitz, they were just numbers, waiting on their death, but who were they before it? What do they dream about? What do they talk about? How do they spend their days, what exactly is happening to and with them? I missed a little more personal approach and a more detailed introduction of everyone.
- Awfully empty dialogues. Mostly, the story involves around 'He said that' and 'It happened that'. The characters were empty and I could not read them - what they're feeling and what they're thinking about. Everything also seemed too easy and too lightweight for the time and place the story was set in.
- A callous writing style. In books like this one, I expect a 'punch in my stomach', I want the story to really hit me, I want to feel all the right feelings, I want the story to build suspense and I also expect a poetic writing style - the kind, that'll paint a picture with the right feelings. This book? Monotone. Not enough description to get the right feeling, not enough feelings that would show a reader the right, horror picture. And since this book was initially written as a movie script, it also reads like one.
I am truly happy that the story of Lale and Gita got out and I'm truly happy it's written and it's heard, but I truly think that this author, unfortunately, did not do a good job writing this story and it's saddening because this book could be so much more than an empty romance book.
I've read a lot of books in my life about Auschwitz and other concentration camps and this one is, in my opinion, one of the worst written books about this subject. It just doesn't show a big enough picture. It was mostly an empty read that will not stay with me.
Also, this book is not Auschwitz, this is a glorified version of it. It's Auschwitz through rose-coloured glasses.
The second book to this one is Cilka's journey which I'll most likely not pick up and read because this writing style does not suit me. And rather than this book, I'd recommend The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe.
I am a Native of New Zealand now resident in Australia, working in a large public hospital in Melbourne. For several years I studied and wrote screenplays, one of which was optioned by an academy award winning Screenwriter in the U.S. In 2003, I was introduced to an elderly gentleman "who might just have a story worth telling". The day I met Lale Sokolov changed my life, as our friendship grew and he embarked on a journey of self scrutiny, entrusting the inner most details of his life during the Holocaust. I originally wrote Lale's story as a screenplay - which ranked high in international competitions - before reshaping it into my debut novel, The Tattooist of Auschwitz.
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