Ludwig ‘Lale’ Eisenberg is a 25 year old Slovakian Jew. He is handsome, bright and multilingual. And apparently a bit of a mummy’s boy.   

One crucial day in 1942, he finds himself on a cattle transport to Auschwitz wearing his best suit and bringing a bag full of expensive clothes, money, books and jewellery. 

In The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris we hear about Lale’s life from the cattle transport in 1942 until his eventual escape in 1945. The novel is based on a true story.

Lale gets the job as Tätowierer for Birkenau and Auschwitz, which means he has to tattoo the ID number on the arm of each new arrival. Moral qualms about working for the SS aside, Lale is determined to make it out of the camp alive and his position as Tätowierer makes life a little bit easier. Lale’s ‘privileges’, which include slightly bigger food rations, are shared with his fellow prisoners and he soon establishes a trading arrangement with some outside workers, exchanging jewellery from the prisoners for food and medicine.

An important part of the story is the relationship with Gita, whom he meets in the concentration camp and later marries. 

Facts or fiction – and does it matter?

It seems that every piece of fiction based on a true story is criticised for not being accurate. As if fiction has to be like a documentary. The Tattooist of Auschwitz has got it’s fair share of criticism. The same goes for the Oscar winning Green Book, The Imitation Game and 12 Years as a Slave.

Personally, I do not have a problem with inaccuracies (yes, I can hear the vaguely groaning sound from all the historians rolling their eyes) although I would expect the storyline broadly to be aligned with the story of the real life person. Ideally the name of the real life person should also be matched. New York Times reports that Lali, not Lale, is the correct spelling of the tattooist’s nickname. I can understand, if the son is unimpressed with that particular mistake.

Anyway, the point of fiction is to tell a good story. If an author/film maker had wanted to do an accurate account of reality, they would have written a history book or filmed a documentary. If a reader had wanted facts he / she would have read a history book or watched a documentary.

Lale (a.k.a. Lali) wanted to tell his story to avoid history repeating itself. New generations still need to hear about the horrors of the past: what humans are capable of doing to each other, but also how humans are able to cope in the most extreme circumstances. These are lessons which will never date. Given the popularity of the novel, it has presumably been successful at that and may very well have reached many people, who wouldn’t otherwise have read about the Holocaust. In that connection it hardly seems relevant that the train route to Auschwitz is not accurately described or that Gita’s ID number apparently differs from the one she had in real life.

But haven’t we heard it all before? 

To me the themes of Holocaust are far from new and with my cynical cap on I might be tempted to ask: Haven’t we heard it all before? And yes, in some sense we have, but The Tattoist of Auschwitz is Lale’s personal story and every personal story is unique.

Furthermore, the coping mechanisms Lale had to apply in the extreme circumstances are relevant to all of us, since they can be used in less extreme situations as well. What distinguished the relatively few who made it out of Auschwitz alive? Presumably, a degree of randomness was involved, but I suspect the survival instinct – the will to live and the ability to adapt– played a role as well. Early on, Lale states that he is determined to make it out of there and he repeats this throughout the book. 

This tallies well with other survivors’ stories. Victor Emil Frankl who survived Theresienstadt has in Man’s Search for Meaning written about how finding a meaning in the experience was his way of surviving. Finding a meaning with life will give you the will to go on. Edith Eger, the author of The Choice, talks about relations and inner strength being key. Lale and Gita having each other certainly helped them to find some meaning in the madness and a reason to stay alive. On a more practical level, they could support each other, which in some cases meant the difference between life and death.

The principles of finding / defining your own meaning of life, building relations and drawing on your inner strengths are of course universal principles, which can be applied to life in general.

Finally, reading about humans coping in inhumane conditions is inspirational and tends to put your own struggles into perspective. I do not belong to the snowflake generation, but should I ever be tempted to have a snowflake moment over some of the ongoing issues life brings, I can just remind myself of a situation Lale describes in the book and any potential snowflake moment will instantly be cut short. I mean, how can you possibly let yourself get depressed about the state of the London rental market, whilst reading about a man for whom a good day is defined by him waking up in the morning?

Self-help books have never been my thing, but reading remarkable biographies, memoirs or fiction based on true stories works perfectly for me as inspiration and motivation.   

Morals and ethics when living on the edge

From the epilogue we learn that Cilka was sentenced to 15 years of hard labour in Siberia after the war.

Cilka, a friend of Gita’s, was sexually abused by camp SS-Obersturmführer Johann Schwarzhuber. It made her sick and depressed, but according to Lale there was little doubt she would have been killed, had she refused. Like Lale, she did what she had to do in order to survive. Lale himself was also worried about being perceived as a collaborator having worked as tattooist for the SS, which is why he did not talk about his past until late in life. 

I can certainly feel empathy with Cilka and her sentence seems harsh to me. Imagine to survive for years in the world’s most deadly concentration camp, only to be sent 15 years to prison in Siberia.

On an abstract level, I can even feel empathy with Stefan Baretzki, who was Lale’s guard in Auschwitz and of similar age. He might of course have been a complete psychopath, who thoroughly enjoyed his role, but then again he might have been a normal young man who was put in an extreme situation. Being placed in Auschwitz and forced to mass exterminate would surely mess up anyone’s mind. I don’t want to defend him, we are all responsible for our actions. But I can see how a weak mind could react to the horrible circumstances by taking desperate measures. Stefan Baretzki committed suicide in prison after the war ended. 

Morals and ethics in war and other extreme situations is an interesting topic with no easy answers. I found myself wondering, what I would have done in Cilka’s or Lale’s situation. Moral values have always been an extremely important factor in my life choices, but would I be willing to pay with my life to stay true to them? I sincerely hope, I never need to find out.

The verdict

The Tattooist of Auschwitz is not terribly well-written. With the horrors of Auschwitz, the dramatic events and the amazing love story between Lale and Gita, the novel had the potential to become so much more.

Still, I think The Tattooist of Auschwitz does deserve a place in the literary world and I for one am glad to have read it:

• Lale’s story is personal, unique and truly amazing. It shows the absolutely best and absolutely worst sides of humanity. 
• For the younger generation, this is an easy accessible piece of fiction, which can hopefully help to introduce the Holocaust to new readers. Based on recent trends in Europe and US, there does seem to be a need to retell this particular story.
• The ways people cope with extreme circumstances such as a concentration camp are universal and can be applied to other aspects of life. Coping has more to do with inner strength and strong relations than with outer circumstances and it is about seeking your luck rather than hoping to be lucky. I guess we can all use a reminder of that from time to time.
• Reading about the horrors of the Holocaust puts minor issues in one’s own life into perspective (i.e. how to avoid snowflake moments…).
• The ethical issues surrounding behaviour in extreme situations are interesting, but tricky.

Go ahead and read Lale’s story, it deserves to get out there. But please read it for the right reasons. Don’t expect amazing literary qualities. Don’t expect a factual, objective description of Auschwitz. Do expect an inspirational read about a couple who found each other under some of the most gruesome circumstances imaginable, which will make you ponder about the many facets of humanity, life coping strategies and moral values and which will put your own life into perspective.