Blurb:
The incredible story of the Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist and the woman he loved.
Lale Sokolov is well-dressed, a charmer, a ladies’ man. He is also a Jew. On the first transport from Slovakia to Auschwitz in 1942, Lale immediately stands out to his fellow prisoners. In the camp, he is looked up to, looked out for, and put to work in the privileged position of Tatowierer – the tattooist – to mark his fellow prisoners, forever. One of them is a young woman, Gita, who steals his heart at first glance.
His life given new purpose, Lale does his best through the struggle and suffering to use his position for good.
This story, full of beauty and hope, is based on years of interviews author Heather Morris conducted with real-life Holocaust surviver and Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov. It is heart-wrenching, illuminating, and unforgettable.
Rating: 4.8/5 stars
Side Notes:
- Genre: Historical Fiction & Biographical Fiction
- Highly recommend for 15 years and above
- A heart-wrenching and unforgettable story
- TW: Sexual assault, abuse, child abuse, self-harm / suicide, starvation, violence, death / dying, blood, racism, antisemitism
Book Quotes:
- “If you wake up in the morning, it is a good day.”
- “To save one is to save the world”
- “Be attentive, Lale; remember the small things, and the big things will work themselves out.”
- “We stand in shit but let us not drown in it.”
- “I know he is not perfect, but I also know he will always put me first.”
- “Lale makes a vow to himself: I will live to leave this place. I will walk out a free man. If there is a hell, I will see these murderers burn in it.”
- “Politics will help you understand the world until you don’t understand it anymore, and then it will get you thrown into a prison camp. Politics and religion both.”
- “How can someone do this to another human being? He wonders if for the rest of his life, be it short or long, he will be defined by this moment, this irregular number: 32407.”
- “Then teach me. I want the girl I marry to like me, to be happy with me.’ Lale’s mother sat down, and he took a seat across from her. ‘You must first learn to listen to her. Even if you are tired, never be too tired to listen to what she has to say. Learn what she likes, and more importantly what she doesn’t like. When you can, give her little treats – flowers, chocolates – women like these things.”
- “How can a race that is spread out across multiple countries be considered a threat?”
- “It’s only your own space if you make it yours.”
- “you will honor them by staying alive, surviving this place and telling the world what happened here.”
- “His mother he can see perfectly. But how do you say goodbye to your mother? The person who gave you breath, who taught you how to live? He cannot say goodbye to her.”
- “Lale’s emotional connection to his mother had shaped the way he related to girls and women. He was attracted to all women, not just physically but emotionally. He loved talking to them; he loved making them feel good about themselves. To him, all women were beautiful and he believed there was no harm in telling them so. His mother and sister subliminally taught Lale what it was a woman wanted from a man, and so far he had spent his life trying to live up to these lessons. “Be attentive, Lale; remember the small things, and the big things will work themselves out.” He heard his mother’s sweet voice.”
- “The girls who work there dream of a place far away where there is plenty of everything and life can be what they want it to be. They have decided Canada is such a place.”
- “Things are as they are. What I can see, feel, hear and smell right now.”
- “You must first learn to listen to her. Even if you are tired, never be too tired to listen to what she has to say. Learn what she likes and, more important, what she doesn’t like.”
- “She was singing. Wow, I thought to myself, they have just lost everything and Mum is singing? She sat me down to tell me what was going on and I asked her, ‘How can you just pack and sing?’ With a big smile on her face she said that when you spend years not knowing if in five minutes’ time you will be dead, there is not much that you can’t deal with. She said, ‘As long as we are alive and healthy, everything will work out for the best.”
- “all of these and more. As the teller of Lale’s story, I had to identify how memory and history sometimes waltz in step and sometimes strain to part, to present not a lesson in history, of which there are many, but a unique lesson in humanity.”
- “And that makes her a hero. You’re a hero, too, my darling. That the two of you have chosen to survive is a type of resistance to these Nazi bastards. Choosing to live is an act of defiance, a form of heroism.”