It was great to read about something beautiful coming out of the inexpilicable horrors of Auschwitz and also that the main protagonists could be viewed by some as collaborators, making this story slightly different from others I had read about the Holocaust. However the writing style was not really for me. I felt there was not enough description of things like the camp and day to day activities which would have enabled me to understand a bit more of what it was like. Also the plot jumped several weeks at a time and the ending was very rushed. This was a true story but if it was fiction I'd have been shouting how everything was too convenient! Lale was clearly a very lucky man! I would however recommend it as a starting point for anyone interested in the Holocaust.

This is an interestingly written story, in some places nearly a Dear Diary of horrors, the sentences are barren of flourishes, simple, mostly spoken from the main person, sometimes from other people's point of view in order to fill up the gaps.

The story itself? A young Jewish good-looking, charming guy, like so many others, is sent to Auschwitz, where, by luck, cunning, and sheer willpower, will survive to tell the tale. More astonishingly, he meets there the woman who will be the love of his life.

From the moment the tattooist of Auschwitz arrives, we know part of the story too well; other survivors have described the horrors of the Holocaust, and what it entailed. What makes this book unique and odd is that it's not just a survivor's story. It's a love story with the background of the concentration camp.

The narrator skips on many of the horrors, but we know they are there, he doesn't need to give lengthy descriptions, the little he says is the tip of a horrid, inhumane iceberg; he is not interested in telling us about the Holocaust, he wants to tell us how his met the love of his life, and what they had to endure to make it through these years.

I couldn't read this book fast enough, I was hooked, I loved it. I came out of it a little bit incredulous, wondering whether things really happened the way he described it, but the author's subsequent research seems to support, certainly more than a few of the events as told. Maybe he embellished a bit, maybe he smoothed some unsavoury angles; As we are repeatedly told: "People did what they had to do to survive".

I cannot possibly begin to find adequate wording that will give justice to this wonderful, stirring and emotional book. Written simply and without sensationalism this true story grips you from the first page and is totally engrossing and unputdownable.. It’s contents will live with me for a long time to come. 5* awarded to this compassionate and caring author.

This is a very dry, step-by-step kind of story. In one paragraph the same name is repeated so many times that it’s jarring how badly written this book is. It needs major editing.

All stories about WW2 have value. It is a constant reminder of the horrors of our collective past.

My parents were born in the middle of WW2 which means I am only one generation removed from that war. Every time I think of that it sends shivers down my spine.

I have never written a book in my life and can only imagine how difficult it must be, so I am always weary to criticize an author’s writing, especially if there is nothing obviously horrible about it. But I do feel that the writing did not captivate me as much as I expected it to.

I was reading with my head not my heart.

There was no one specific thing that prevented me from really enjoying this but more an amalgamation of little things. The author clearly didn’t want to leave out any detail, no matter how small which means that there were sections that felt unnecessary. Other times big events that deserved deeper exploration were glanced over, in favour of the next incident, and the next and the next. Granted a lot happened but I think I would have preferred if only a handful of things were focused on properly and a richer story built around that.

Lale’s story of survival in Auschwitz is almost fantastical in scope and I would recommend this for people who, unlike myself, have not read many books about Auschwitz or concentration camps.

Author, Heather Morris, was introduced to this book’s main character, Lale Sokolov, in 2003. From that meeting first grew a screenplay and eventually this ‘novel’ about Lale’s life as the main tattooist at Auschwitz. I write ‘novel’ in quotes because it’s hard for me to figure out if this is a biography, or historical fiction. To me, it feels like a biography, but the author has stated that it is a novel, so that is the genre I will use too.

We meet Lale as a young man on an overcrowded train cattle car heading to, he knows not where. He is one of the early Slovakian Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in Poland. He volunteered to leave his family on the assurance that the rest of his family would be spared further deportation efforts. (Which we now know was a lie.) He struggles to keep his equilibrium in the face of the inhumanity surrounding him. Unexpectedly he is selected by a fellow prisoner to be his aide in task if tattooing all incoming prisoners on their arm with their six-digit camp identifier number. The original “tetovierer”, Lale’s mentor, failed to show up at the tattoo tables one day. Lale never saw him again. That day he became the camp tetovierer.
In his new capacity at camp he is assigned his own SS minder who is sadistic but at times a sad character. Lale moves to better housing accommodations, gets extra food, and can move around the camp relatively freely. He is afraid that because of his job and these privileges, he is seen as a Nazi collaborator. Improbably in camp he meets the love of his life, Gita. He looks up from refreshing the tattoo on a young woman’s arm, and is captivated by the woman he sees. Through the years that Gita and Lale spend in camp together they develop first a friendship and then a romance.

Through some subterfuge and bargaining, Lale is able to trade jewels and money found by the women tasked with going through the discarded clothing of new arrivals, for food and medicine provided by Polish bricklayers who come to camp daily to build the gas chambers and other camp buildings. He walks a tightrope trying to get aid to those he can while not endangering the Polish workers or those he is helping. There is one section of the book that describes a brutal two weeks in what I’d describe as a torture prison after loose jewels and jewelry are found stuffed in his mattress. But miraculously, he is one of the very few (if only) prisoners to survive that stint and eventually return to his camp duties.

Even the story about how Gita and Lale were separated at the end of the war, and his effort to reunite with her, even though he only found out her last name as she was being driven from the camp, was nail-biting with suspense. Eventually the couple reunites, and are soon married. They live in Slovakia until that country starts to imprison folks for no good reason when the Communists really start to clamp down on the country. When the situation in Slovakia worsen, they move to Australia.

I’m so glad that Lale overcame his fear about being labeled a collaborator enough to share his story with Heather Morris. I’m also thankful that Heather spent the years she did with him to glean his story and tell it in such a straightforward was. This was a very moving story about one couple’s journey to survive one of the blackest periods of human history. May we never forget the horror of the Holocaust!

"Thank-you" to the author, NetGalley, and the Zaffre imprint of the Bonnier Zaffre publishing house for providing me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I got this book from @netgalley and I’m so glad I got to read this. It’s published by @bonnierzaffre
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I don’t like reading war time books because they get too depressing or too political. But this one was so different, it gave you hope, that even in the darkest of times if your will power and faith is strong you can come out successful. And to top it all off, it’s a true story!!
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It will be released on 11th January 2018. So add this to your TBR guys for your winter reads!!

I’ve always held a deep respect for books that remind us how terribly bad human nature can be if left unbridled, so it went without question that this book was a must-read. It means so much more when you consider and appreciate that the book is based on fact, and whenever possible, historical documentation was used to adhere as closely as possible to actual events. The author, Heather Morris, spent years with Lale Sokolov, the protagonist of the story, and I can only imagine the deep love and respect she must feel for this amazing human being. Their initial conversation, so simple and poignant, “I might just have a story worth telling”, led her to write this book so others can remember and appreciate the undying human spirit.
The treatment of the Jews by Hitler was incomprehensible. Lale, who voluntarily turned himself in, believing this would save the lives of his family, has a heart of gold and a strong will that helps him and those around him stay as sane as possible, given the circumstances. He learns quickly how to manipulate and respect the officers in order to place himself in a safer job. He doesn’t stop there; he uses his job to trade goods and provide food to numerous others, rarely just for himself.
One day in the never-ending line of poor souls offering their arm to be tattooed, Lale looks up into the eyes of a young lady, Gita, which affects him instantly. He dedicates the remainder of his time in prison to ensuring that she survives, no matter what. Lale crosses paths with the monster Josef Mengele and numerous other hateful officers and soldiers who abuse, torture and quite easily kill whomever they wish. His job of staying alive and keeping Gita alive gives him the will to go above and beyond, using his privileges for others even more than himself.
There are parts in the book where the treatment of the prisoners seem a bit more humane than what history has detailed, and this may be the way Lale prefers to remember it for others. Instead of embellishing what was truly awful to begin with, Lale softens the edges in his interpretations. This is consistent with the way he conducted himself with others while imprisoned, reminding them to be positive and try to laugh in a ghastly, deadly, evil world.
There are parts where the writing seems somewhat simple, but I think the writer is trying to stick to the thoughts and feelings of Lale, Gita and their fellow prisoners, avoiding dwelling on the deep history and background of the daily status of the war. I appreciate that style; it dedicates all emotion to the story of their love and their will to survive and help others survive with them.
I very much enjoyed reading this, and I envy the author for the precious hours she was able to spend with such a forgiving, peaceful human being. It would be an honor to have met Lale Sokolov.
(I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. Thank you to Zaffre and NetGalley for making it available.)

Thank you for the opportunity to read 'The Tattooist of Auschwitz'. I found this to be a moving and insightful book and admire the incredible courage and determination of Lale and Gita. I found it fascinating to read about the daily life of Auschwitz inmates and the camaraderie between different groups of people. The brutal treatment they received is hard to read about but it is important that the world continues to remember what happened to try to stop it ever happening again.

This is based on a true story of Lale Sokolov. He volunteered to work for the Nazi in exchange for his family's safety. He left his very comfortable life and stylish clothes for the unknown. He was lucky enough to get a job being the person that applies the tattoos to all the new Jew that came into Auschwitz. One day he become mesmerized by a woman that he is to tattoo and wants to know more about her. What will he do to be with her?

This Holocaust story is unlike any other that I have read because the point of view. Lale has a job working for the Nazis and is allowed to have a private room as well as more rations. He is also allowed to move about the camp in ways that others are not.

By the end of the book I was sobbing. It was beautifully written. I never wanted to put it down.

I highly recommend this book to anyone, especially if you like reading about the Holocaust. This gives such a different angle than most other books.

A tragic but uplifting true story of surviving the horrors of Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps. A book that should be read by everyone if only to prevent anything like this ever happening again.

Absolutely heartbreaking but so well written. These stories deserve to be told and never forgotten.

An extraordinary story and one that needed to be told. Not always an easy read - but an important one. Moving and emotional

I have always been enthralled with stories of concentration camps- the very idea that this was allowed by so many to happen - horrifies me. This is no different. This is a story of a survivor- Lale- who makes his way through Birkenau, never stopping helping others and working for the others imprisoned with him.
The storytelling is not only based from a true story but very well written and engaging. I felt myself dreaming about the characters and hoping for a fairytale ending. I would definitely recommend this feel-good tale to someone hoping to learn about this era in history.

I would like to thank Net Galley for the advanced copy of "The Tattooist of Auschwitz".
It's a book about the Holocaust with a little different twist telling the story of how a man survives Auschwitz and how he helps other prisoners as well. The book was very good and kept my interest till the end . It gives a good account of the horror of the prison camps. I look forward to another book by this author.

One of the iconic symbols of the Holocaust is the numbers tattooed onto the forearms of those chosen to survive the selection process that sent most of those arriving at death camps to the gas chambers. Lale Lokolov was the person who applied many of those tattoos.

I've read that those who survived the concentration camps were generally young adults who were in good physical shape when they arrived, were able to make friends who helped them survive and who were either there for a relatively short time, or who managed in one way or another to get extra food. Lale was an early arrival at Auschwitz but other than that, he fit the profile of the survivor. For whatever reason, those running the camp deemed him worthy of extra rations and private sleeping quarters. Further, he was able to befriend a local villager who worked in the camp and women who sorted the luggage of new arrivals, and to broker trades of valuables found in the luggage for food for himself and others.

One day while on duty as a tattooist, Lale had to apply a tattoo to Gita, to whom he was immediately attracted. He managed to meet her, carry on a romance with her, and after they were free, re-connect with her and marry her.

Lale was the quintessential "people person" who knew how to read people, how to get along with them, and yes, how (within the confines of the situation) to get them to do what he wanted. A particular guard was assigned to be his "keeper" and while he and Lale were by no means friends, a part of me thinks that had they met in a different time at a different place, they might have been.

The story follows Lale from his arrival at Auschwitz through his escape from the Nazis near the end of the war, through working for the Russians (and escaping from them) to finally reuniting with Gita and marrying her. The book ends with a list of the fates of some of the major characters, which I found interesting.

The book is classified as historical fiction and I suppose this is one of those times that having the liberty to make up conversations, characters or even events can help tell more truth than sticking strictly to that which could be remembered by an old man or verified through documentary evidence. Still, I'd be curious to know what in the book actually happened, and what was a figment of the author's imagination.

While I enjoyed the book, the writing style struck me as less than professional--the book rambled at times and the sentence structure was very simplistic in parts of the book. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book (as much as you can use the word "enjoy" to describe visiting a place designed to torture and kill people) and give it a B. I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley.

To be published 1/2/18

Right after I started reading this book there was a story on the local news about a new exhibit at the Jewish Community Center in our area. The exhibit highlights the Holocaust survivors from this area. At kiosks you can click on a name, read a bio but what struck me the most was that you can also see a video of the survivor telling their story. The utmost importance of these stories is reflected at the beginning of this book by author Graeme Simsion: "It reminds us that every one of the unimaginably large number of Holocaust victims was an individual with a unique story...." . It's really not possible to know what it was like in Auschwitz or the other camps no matter how much we read about the Holocaust, but it is through the stories of the survivors that we can try to understand, even if only a little . Heather Morris has retold the story of Lale Sokolov, a Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz who becomes the camp tattooist and while there finds the love of his life, Gita. This stared out as a screenplay she wrote as Lale told her his story and has been developed into this "novel".

Lale from the first day he arrives in Auschwitz by cattle car, makes a vow to himself that he would survive this and after falling in love with Gita, he makes a promise to her that they will have a life together when they are out . That he can speak multiple languages saves Lale multiple times as well as connections made with other people imprisoned, with workers from the outside and even a German guard. With jewelry and cash gotten from the women who work in the building where belongings are sorted, Lale with his savvy, his courage and with some luck barters for time with Gita for the price of chocolate, a piece of sausage , a hunk of bread, a diamond or ruby. But he also provides as much food as he can to others. He helps many people along the way putting himself in danger each day as each day he tattoos numbers onto the arms of the new inhabitants. He does seem to have an existence in some ways better than most in the camp and better than when he first arrived until he is caught with the jewels. It is obvious that he survives, so there's no spoiler here that Lale continues to have the capacity for hope and love that seems impossible as he endures.

This is a story told with love about courage in the face of the horrors of the camps and loss of family, courage sustained by the strength of the human spirit and it's a love story that I'll never forget. There is not much more I can say other than what Lale himself tells Morris - that he wanted his story recorded so "It would never happen again."

I received an advanced copy of this book from Bonnie Zaffre through NetGalley.

As soon as I read the write up for this work I felt I had to read it and how glad I am that I did. This is a fantastic read and probably the best book I have read for a while and what makes it even more compelling is that it is a true story.
This is the story of Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew who was held during World War 2 in the infamous Auschwitz prison camp and worked as the tattooist forced to mark each prisoner with an identification number. He himself was prisoner 34902 and against all odds falls in love with fellow prisoner Gita while tattooing her. This is a love story like no other and so much more as well.
This is a book that took Heather Morris over 3 years to complete and was written from interviews with Lale. This is a book that covers all emotions and will stay in your thoughts long after. Once I started reading this book I wanted to carry on reading and finished it in two sittings. On completion I have started searching for more information about this amazing man Lale Sokolov and I look forward to the film that must surely follow the future success of this book.
I would like to thank Net Galley and Bonnier Zaffre for supplying a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

In late 1942, when Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov passed through the most notorious gates in modern history, he was a healthy, bright, outgoing young man with a penchant for the company of women. To reach his destination he had travelled for two days on an overcrowded cattle train from Prague, without access to food, water or toilets. From this point on he became Prisoner Number 32407 at Auschwitz II–Birkenau, and after surviving the initial selection and a serious bout of typhus, he was put to work as camp tattooist.

He had been manager of a fashionable department store in Bratislava when the Slovak Government decreed that every Jewish family living in his home town of Krompachy should send one child over the age of eighteen to work for the Germans. He was multilingual, quick to learn and adored his mother, so offered himself up for transportation in the hope of protecting his family.

Lale did what had to be done to survive, but he also boosted morale and saved inestimable lives by appropriating food and medical supplies from right under the noses of the SS Death's Head Units. He was naturally empathetic, well liked by his fellow prisoners and held out to the end with his dignity and integrity unblemished. More amazingly, perhaps, is that he developed a deep and enduring love for a women he had branded upon entering the camp.

When the writer Heather Morris met him in 2003 he was an elderly businessman living in Australia. They became unlikely friends and she saw that he “might just have a story worth telling”. The Tattooist of Auschwitz is the remarkable, percipient, utterly unforgettable novel based on Lale's experiences as camp tätowierer.

Although a natural optimist with a tremendous zest for life, Lale feared history might remember him as a Nazi collaborator, which is why he agreed to tell his story. He died on 31st October 2006, aged 90, believing to the end that, “If you wake up in the morning, it is a good day.”