Admin's Pick: The Tattooist of Auschwitz

This week's Admin's Pick is The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris, a story of genocide that follows Lale Sokolov as he risks everything. Lale leaves home to protect his family and his friends, having been promised their safety and nourishment by the invading Nazis. It is not until Lale arrives at Auschwitz amid the cold and harsh days of the impending Second World War that he realizes his mistake; that the world is cold and cruel, and will take everything from you in the blink of an eye. 

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 over 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. 

“The Tattooist of Auschwitz is an extraordinary document, a story about the extremes of human behaviour existing side by side: calculated brutality alongside impulsive and selfless acts of love. I find it hard to imagine anyone who would not be drawn in, confronted and moved. I would recommend it unreservedly to anyone, whether they’d read a hundred Holocaust stories or none.”

—Graeme Simsion, internationally-bestselling author of The Rosie Project

Lale challenges the men who threaten him at every step, finding ways to secure food and luxury goods for the prisoners he shares his quarters with, and finds romance with a girl he's responsible for branding. The Tattooist of Auschwitz is a story of the very real horror that Ludwig Sokolov endured during the Holocaust, and the story of countless others that died, their sacrifices forgotten amidst the rubble of war.