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1-Page Summary of The Tattooist of Auschwitz
Overall Summary
Heather Morris’s novel The Tattooist of Auschwitz is based on the true story of Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew who survived the Holocaust. The book tells the story of his love for Gita and how they overcome many obstacles together. Lale becomes a “tattooist” at Auschwitz, tattooing numbers onto prisoners’ arms in place of their names to mark them as property with no identity or humanity. He meets Gita while working at Auschwitz and they fall in love despite all odds against them surviving there.
Lale is the lens through which we see the Holocaust. He never loses his humanity, even though he is subjected to a dehumanizing system. Lale’s moral bearing conflicts with his role in the concentration camp, because he tattoos other Jews and helps kill them. However, by doing so, he also saves their lives by keeping them from being killed immediately.
Lale uses his position to obtain illegal goods and trade for other items that help people survive, like food and medicine. Lale’s choices highlight the fact that morality can change in times of crisis. People have a strong desire to survive, which becomes their moral imperative.
The novel begins with a train transporting Jewish prisoners to an unknown destination. The prisoners are tired, thirsty and hungry; as the journey progresses, this only gets worse. They all turn to Lale for advice and guidance because they know he can be trusted during difficult times. One prisoner in particular—Aron—relies on him heavily.
The main character, Lale, is transported to Auschwitz. He specifically goes to the Auschwitz Two Birkenau work camp during his first night there. During this time he witnesses two men being murdered by SS guards. This scene will never leave him and it’s one of many that shapes his personality throughout the book.
Lale slowly adjusts to the daily hard work and horror of life in Birkenau. However, after seeing a bus full of naked prisoners gassed, Lale faints and contracts typhus. When he wakes up a week later, he is cared for by Pepan, the tattooist at Birkenau. Aron saved Lale by bringing him to Pepan, but lost his own life in doing so.
Lale is horrified at the job of tattooing, but he accepts it because it’s a means to support himself. He falls in love with a girl and gets her name tattooed on his chest before she enters the prison.
After Pepan disappears, Lale becomes the main tattooist. He is presided over by a sadistic SS officer named Baretski who arbitrarily selects an assistant for him. The two quickly fall in love and begin a relationship despite their limited time together on Sundays. They also establish relationships with two Polish civilians: Victor and his son, Yuri. Using these connections, they start a new business venture where they use goods to pay off the Poles to bring them food that they can then distribute among other prisoners in order to help them survive during this difficult period of their lives; this allows Gita to live when she falls ill from typhus because Lale is able to get her penicillin through one of his connections he made with the Poles.
Lale is a Jew living in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II. He has a reputation as an excellent tattooist and trades with the Germans, but that sometimes causes him trouble. One day, he’s caught by SS officers who confiscate all of his possessions and take him to be tortured. As punishment for dealing with the enemy, they cut off Lale’s ear and brand him on his face. However, Cilka helps nurse Lale back to health so that he can regain his position as chief tattooist for the Nazis at Plaszow concentration camp.
