The Tattooist of Auschwitz

The book, which was Morris’ debut novel, was originally written as a screenplay.[9] Morris was proposed the idea of telling the story of Lale Sokolov by a mutual friend of hers and Lale’s son, after Lale’s wife Gita died.[10] Morris met with Lale for three years until his death in 2006,[11] to hear his story about his time with Gita in Auschwitz and take notes for her screenplay.[10] During those meetings with Lale, he told Morris about the trauma, pain and survivor guilt he experienced.[10]

6 years after first meeting with Lale, Morris’ sister-in-law suggested writing the story as a book.[10]

Told from the perspective of Lale Sokolov, the story follows his journey as a prisoner of Auschwitz concentration camp during WWII. After being forcibly transported on a long journey on a livestock train with other Jewish prisoners, Lale arrives at Auschwitz II-Birkenau work camp where within his first night witnesses two men killed by the SS.

Lale adjusts to his new life as a Jewish prisoner, which involves witnessing gassings of fellow prisoners, and becoming ill with typhus. While ill, the current tattooist of the camp, Pepan, takes interest in Lale and allows him to become his apprentice. Lale endures the labour of tattooing new prisoners to enable further survival.

Lale briefly meets a beautiful, young woman while tattooing her arm upon her entry to the camp and he experiences love at first sight. Eventually, Lale becomes the main tattooist after Pepan disappears, indicating his probable execution. Lale asks the SS officer in charge of him, Baretksi, with whom he has built a trusted relationship with, for an assistant. He is given a young prisoner named Leon. Lale often risks his own life to exchange jewels, money, medicine, and items of clothing with other prisoners who are suffering.

Lale uses his relationship with Baretski to gain increased privileges within the camp, including the ability to communicate with the beautiful woman he met earlier, Gita. Gita works in one of the camp warehouses that houses the confiscated belongings of prisoners, and often sneaks valuable items to Lale. While Gita is ill with typhus, Lale brings her medicine and promises to one day start a family with her once she is well again.

The SS officers begin acting nervous and impulsive upon news that the Russian army is advancing. Many camp documents are destroyed. Many prisoners are transferred out of Auschwitz, including Gita who in the rush tells Lale her surname is Furman. Lale is transferred to a new camp called Mauthausen in Austria and then soon to a better camp in Vienna. Meanwhile, Gita escapes with three Polish women before making her way to Bratislava, Slovakia.

Lale escapes from his camp in Vienna through a hole in the fence and upon being found by Russian soldiers, is forced to work at a Russian-owned chalet due to his experience speaking multiple languages. He eventually escapes and makes his way to his hometown to find his sister alive, his parents still missing, and that his older brother had died.

He then heads to Bratislava to find Gita, knowing that many Slovakian prisoners were being sent there. He waits two weeks at a train station and then spots her in a street. The pair kneel down and tell each other they love each other. Lale asks if Gita will marry him and she agrees.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz fits into the genre of Holocaust fiction. Morris writes using simple, short sentences from a third-person point of view where Lale is the omniscient narrator and protagonist of the story.

According to Steve Walker, Morris "welds the historical events – and real people – on to a fictional frame."[12]

The novel utilises many elements of the Romantic genre, specifically through the key plot line of Lale and Gita's love story.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz also fits into the Biographical genre. The novel is based on events in the real Lale Sokolov's life and represents the circumstances Lale and other characters in the story lived through.

Timonthy Niedermann, writing in The New York Journal of Books, calls the novel “at once sobering and poignant, both weighted with unspeakable horrors and uplifted by the unique hope of love”.[13] He felt that while the book lacks physical descriptions, and Morris is “vague about the specifics of the extermination process”, her depiction of humanity in the characters is a strength.[13]

Wanda Witek-Malicka from the Auschwitz Memorial Research Center,[3] writing in Memoria, offered historical criticism, questioning the novel’s factual inaccuracies and stating that the entire image of reality at Auschwitz displayed in the book is built on “exaggerations, misinterpretations and understatements”.[3] She warns that those who read the Czech translation of the book may take its stories as fact,[3] which the Memorial Center believe is "dangerous and disrespectful to history".[8]

A key concern for the Auschwitz Memorial Research Center was Morris' claim that Gita's identification number tattooed on her arm was 34902, stating "we do not find any surviving documents with her personal data or relating to number 34902 issued in the women's series" and that a prisoner arriving at Auschwtiz at the time Gita did could not have received such a high number.[3] Witek-Malicka states that according to Gita's own testimony, her identification number was 4562.[3] Witek-Malicka also rejects Morris' claim that Doctor Mengele conducted sterilisation tests on men in Auschwitz, and that in 1942 Lale gave Gita penicillin for her typhoid fever, because this antibiotic was not widely available until after the war.[3]

Hirsh, Láníček, Mitschke & Shields, writing in the Australian Journal of Jewish Studies, state that creative license is common, but that “Heather Morris’ steadfast reliance on conversations she shared with Lale Sokolov’s towards the end of his life have contributed to a simplification that narrows understanding of the reality of Auschwitz”.[6] They note the flattening of the experiences of the character, Gita Furman, as an example of this simplification.[6]

The Creative Director of Synchronicity Films, Claire Mundell secured the rights to The Tattooist of Auschwitz after making a deal with Bonnier Books UK in 2018.[14] The novel was set to be turned into a multi-part television series to be released in January 2020.[14] There have been no reports of this deal going ahead since September, 2018.[14]

By November 2018, the book had been translated into 17 languages.[15] By September 2019, official translations of the book had been published in 47 languages.[8] One of these translations is in Slovak, Lale's native language.[16] Morris celebrated the launch of the Slovak version of the book in Krompachy in Eastern Slovakia, which is where Lale was born.[16]