An unbelievably fantastic book. The most upsetting and harrowing of subjects. I've read numerous books over the years about the Holocaust, but this true story will stay with me for a long time. I would highly recommend this book. A huge thanks to the publisher & NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this advance copy.

Thanks to netgalley and the publishers for a free digital ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I thought the premise of this book, a man who was responsible for tattooing prisoners in Auschwitz, would be a pretty good read. This book is based on a true story and reads more of like a memoir. I found that all the mundane details to be a little bit hard to plow through. I hate to rate any book that was written on this terrible time in history below a 5 stars, but I just couldn't get into this book.

I had this novel downloaded for three months before I read it. I requested it the first day it went onto Netgalley but just kept putting it off. Novels based during the Holocaust are harrowing reading, so it stayed on my To Read Next list, until I saw it had been published I decided the time was right to read it.

Everyone knows that the inmates in Auschwitz, and other concentration camps, were tattooed. I for one have never thought about who did the tattooing, if it was an inmate, and if taking on such a duty could be deemed to be collaborating with the enemy.

This is a novel about the tattooist, taken from endless interviews with the protagonist Lale. At the core of the story is the love story between Lale and Gita another inmate he meets in Auschwitz. Lale is a charming man emotional man. He falls in love with Gita at first sight, charms people, and uses this charm to survive. In fact, the charm and genuine kindness that saves him.

Gita we know very little about. She doesn’t even tell him her last name until they leave Auschwitz. Gita works in the office processing the details of inmates, so for Lale the inmates are a number but for Gita they are real people with names and families. All documented.

I did find this a harrowing read. My whole demeanour changed when reading it, I found people interrupting me just annoyed me and I cried at the authors notes at the end. There are other characters in the tale whose story possibly moved me more than Lale and Gita’s. Leon the other tattooist, the Roma Lale shared a block with, and Cilka who worked in the office with Gita. In fact it was Cilka’s fate that really started the tears.

As a novel, it’s a quick read, but as a human story its one that will stay with you long after the last page. Four Stars.

I began reading this book thinking that it was going to be another run of the mill holocaust story however, the author made the exploits of this charismatic captive not too traumatic a read. The love story is incredible in light of where it took place and the author should take much credit in the telling of it. Thorough recommended.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz

by Heather Morris

When a book reads like fiction but is a union of memories and history, it is literary work that is destined to engage and move the reader. The Tattooist of Auschwitz is such a tale, related by Lale Sokolov to Heather Morris over a three year period. It is a horrific story of desperation in the worst of circumstances and of Lale’s confidence that he would survive and marry his beloved fellow sufferer Gita.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz displays the best and worst of mankind. It shows the incredible resilience of the human spirit. Throughout, the reader witnesses people doing whatever it takes to survive as does Lale who is innovative, multilingual, charming, and determined that in the end his tormentors would not get the best of him. There are many books written about the Holocaust. Each addresses the events from a different perspective. This is another valuable contribution, adding to our understanding and reinforcing the sentiment of “never again.”

I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Bonnier Zaffire for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 5/5

Category: General Fiction (Adult), Historical Fiction

Notes: Despite the nature of the events being retold, the writing has a respectful tone without graphic descriptions of violence or swearing. I highly recommend this book.

Publication: January 11, 2018—Bonnier Zaffire

Memorable Lines:

Lale has witnessed an unimaginable act. He staggers to his feet, standing on the threshold of hell, an inferno of feelings raging inside him.

How can a race spread out across multiple countries be considered a threat?

“I know it’s a strange thing for me to say, but you will honor them by staying alive, surviving this place and telling the world what happened here.”

He knows they will never grow to be the women they were meant to be. Their futures have been derailed and there will be no getting back on the same track. The visions they once had of themselves, as daughters, sisters, wives and mothers, workers, travelers, and lovers, will forever be tainted by what they’ve witnessed and endured.

I stayed away from reading 'the boy in the striped pyjamas' because I know what the book contained and I wanted to be entertained, I did not want to read something that would make my heartache.

For me 2018 is hopefully going to be the year that I break out of my reading mold and reach out to books that I would normally bypass, and this would most defiantly be one of those books.

This is the whole point of challenges , to push yourself out of your comfort zone and golly, I am glad that I was offered this to read and clicked accept.

This book is written so well and it a joy to read, the words just melted off the page and you are turning page by page.

It is also an utterly harrowing tale of a mans desire to survive against the odds and come out the other end alive and in love!

The aforementioned gentlemen is called Lale Sokolov and he was THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ, forced to work by the Germans in the POW camp.

In 1942 Slovakian families were required to offer up a member of their family to work or face the whole family being sent to a concentration camp, Lale was this person. He thought that by doing this, he would be saving his family, little did he know that he was going to arrive at Auschwitz.

Lale did not expect to find love whilst her was there, but love he found, amongst the pain and the suffering, he tattooed her arm and took her heart with it.

There is SO much more to this book than I have outlined here, the intolerable cruelty of this place and of the people who lived, worked and died there.

This book is totally engaging and defiantly should be on your 2018 reading list, whether you like this subject matter or not, it is written like fiction, but certainly is not, it is an extraordinary bid for life and an amazing book to have in your collection.

Thank you NETGALLEY and the PUBLISHERS for letting me read this, I am really happy to have done so and well done HEATHER MORRIS for writing it so well.

Thank you for dropping by and I look forward to seeing you here again!

Have a booktastic day!

I don't think I've ever read a WWII novel that I didn't like. And that's because there are so many stories from that period that deserve to be told. There are unsung heroes, overlooked workers, and behind the scenes support that all deserve their moment of remembrance. However, I tend to veer away from stories about the Holocaust due to the heaviness of the subject matter and, often, the heartbreaking images that one forms while reading. When I came across the opportunity to receive an ARC for The Tattooist of Auschwitz, though, I was immediately intrigued. This is unlike any Holocaust story I've come across yet.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz is based on the real story of Lale & Gita Solokov. I'll admit that my first impression of the novel was that Lale had an "easier" time than most during his time at Auschwitz and I wasn't sure how I felt about reading an entire book about that. But, I quickly realized that I was wrong. The Tattooist of Auschwitz is so much more than that. It is a story of hope. A story of sacrifice and love. A story about how hard work & luck & the actions of others all form our path in life. And a story about how you can find the light in even the darkest of circumstances.

Lale used his knowledge, speaking multiple languages, and his position at the tattooist of Auschwitz (the Tetovierer) to risk everything in order to help others. And Heather Morris tells this story beautifully - with a focus on the relationships Lale forms through his sacrifices, and the people he is able to help along the way. She also does a brilliant job weaving in other parts of the history of Auschwitz and the Holocaust, for example the presence of gypsies as the camps as prisoners and the roles of SS "doctors" such as Josef Mengele.

Lale's ability to find hope at almost every corner he turned, his promise to Gita that they WILL survive Auschwitz, and his constant role as a support pillar for those struggling to adapt to the terrible situation they were in makes him a true inspiration. I am so happy that Heather Morris took the time to listen, research, and tell this story.

This book is stunning. I had seen a lot of people raving about what an amazing book this was and I was a little worried about all the hype and that I might end up disappointed. There was no need to worry, it completely floored me in the most moving, gripping and emotional way possible. Not the kind of book I'd normally pick up and I'm so glad that my curiosity got the better of me.
I instantly fell in love with Lale and his perception of women. His depth and warmth towards others. I knew little about the horrors that occurred during the war at Auschwitz and I feel both honoured and blessed to have been able to hear Lales story. The strength that is shown and given to others, what people had to endure is phenomenal and I think that this story of everlasting love and survival will stay with me or the rest of my life. The authors note and acknowledgements had me in tears, to see pictures of them after having imagined them throughout the book, adds that extra layer of humanity and truth.

It’s 1942 and all Slovakian families are told they need to send one family member to the labour camps to work, if they refused they risked their whole family being sent to a concentration camp. Lale Sokolov put himself forward to protect his family, little did he know that he was on his way to Auschwitz. His journey to Auschwitz was the start of it all, on a train for days, crammed with so many people that they had no room to sit. Survival started with that train Journey and went on for several years.

Lale knew there were certain things that he needed to do to survive, keep his eyes down, not to attract the attention of the guards, remain clear-headed and strong. After fellow prisoners save his life from an illness Lale manages to get the job of ‘Tetovierer’ or ‘Tattooist, it was his job to tattoo the numbers on the prisoners as they came in to camp, Lale struggled with this sometimes especially when it came to women and children. When a group of women prisoners come in and he looks in to the eyes of a woman called Gita, he realises he has something else to live for as one day he is going to marry that woman.

The job of tetovierer came with some small luxuries, he had his own room and an extra portion of food which he used to smuggle to other prisoners. Lale will do anything for anyone but it may just cost him his life.

This is a debut novel by Heather Morris, it is a true account of Lale Sokolov’s time in Auschwitz. It’s a harrowing read of the treatment the prisoners endured. This was a brutal and chilling read but also very emotive and puts our everyday troubles into perspective. This was sensitively written and compelling, I sometimes had step back for a moment to remind myself that this really happened and everything I was reading was a devastating and cruel reality.

This is definitely a book that I recommend you pick up in 2018 – this is like ‘Night’ by Elie Wiesel, so if you enjoyed that book you will definitely enjoy this.

I rated this 4.5 out 5 stars

Stories from inside Auschwitz's walls, or any prison camp for that matter, are difficult to read. They tear at your heart strings. The story of Lale Sokolov, as told by author Heather Morris, is a tale of the joy of the human spirit which cannot be suppressed by even the most horrific and inhumane circumstances. It is the story of a plant, growing through the crushing cracks of concrete.

Lale Sokolov volunteered to go "away" in 1942. He, and millions of others, were told that, by going to the work camps, they would be sparing their family members. Lale arrives at Auschwitz, unsure of what is really going on, and has his life stripped and stolen away from him. He is no longer Lale, an upstanding citizen of Bratislavia, but a worthless piece of refuse, known to the Nazi regime as Prisoner 32407.
Lale is determined to survive, and uses his wits and gift with languages to make life better for himself and his fellow inmates. He shares with those around him, coming to the notice of the tattooist, who selects Lale to be his assistant. Lale does his work, hating every second, regretting every stab of the needle, but using his position to do what little he can for others in the camp, like medicine, chocolate, sausages, etc... He takes pity on the one group in camp that is even lower in status than the Jews, the Gypsies, befriending them and caring for their children. Along the way, he tattoos a beautiful girl, and his world shatters. He falls in love with Gita, who refuses to share her last name with him, until they are free of Auschwitz's terror. They struggle on towards freedom together, and observing their romance transform Lale makes imagining the hardship more bearable.

This is the incredible tale of a man who believed "To save one is to save the world" with all of his heart and with every breath. Read this book. If you read no other book this year but this, your life will be the better for it.

Keeping his humanity alive in the brutal camp of Auschwitz, Lale Sokolov must tattoo his fellow inmates for identification. He meets Gita in this lineup and their love story begins, surmounting odds stacked against them. A sensitive, poignantly written book, exposing both brutality and gentleness during this most shameful, wretched point in human history.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz

There was a lot of hype in my book club about this book and I had a serious fear of missing out. I had to read this book!

Ordinarily I wouldn’t go for this kind of genre but something about this book drew me to it.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz is based on the true story of two Slovakian Jews - Lale and Gita - who survived the atrocities of Auschwitz. Heather Morris spent between three and four years with Lale, finding out exactly what the couple and many many others went through. She does an amazingly sensitive job of retelling their story.

This book is an emotionally harrowing read that helps the reader actually feel like we are there, we experience the devastation and loss but also the hope and survival. Make sure you have the tissues at the ready! Five beautiful stars from purplebookstand.

Oh my goodness - this book!

I admit to reading it with some trepidation. Given the topic, I expected to be bawling my eyes out halfway through the book but this is a sensitive novel about what is basically a love story. It is the story of perseverance, of the strength of the human character, and how some people came to survive the most horrific of situations.

Heather Morris manages to take a horrendous true story about the people and the conditions in Auschwitz and tell it in a way that is life-affirming and uplifting. It's incredibly sad in parts, as you would expect, but it is overall a beautiful, well-written story.

The Tatooist of Auschwitz is a well-written and memorable tribute to Lale Sokolov, sent to Auschwitz on April 23, 1942. Due to his knowledge of several languages, Lale, a Slovokian Jew, was given the job of tattooing the numbers on the inside of the arms of his fellow German prisoners-of-war in the Birkenau and Auschwitz concentration camps. He hated being the one who reduced each prisoner to a number, but was acutely aware of the special privileges that the job could bring, and knew if he refused to do it, the Nazis would find someone else and he would be shot or put to hard labor.

Three months after being taken prisoner, Lale found himself immediately attracted to one of the young women waiting in his line to be tattooed. Gita was shy and hesitant at first, but found herself attracted to him as well. Soon love bloomed. The fact that they were able to find love in one of the darkest, most demented, horrific places ever recorded is an acknowledgement of the basic human need to be seen, known and loved. Their love survived until Gita's death on October 3, 2003.

This book is not for the faint of heart, but then, no book about the Holocaust is. The harsh conditions, the inhumanity of the Nazis towards the prisoners, Dr. Mengele's experiments, the horror of knowing that death could come at any time for any (or no) reason, seeing hundreds of fellow prisoners packed up like cattle and taken to the crematoriums, all is documented here.

But above all else, this is a story of one man's strong will to survive. His ability to remain positive, and hopeful, looking ahead to the day when he (and Gita) would be free again, while not losing his dignity or bowing down to his captors is an inspiring one.

This is not a book that is easily read because of the subject matter, but it is an engrossing one, which makes the pages turn themselves.

Many thanks to NetGalley & Zaffre publisher for allowing me the privilege of reading an e-ARC of this book. All opinions expressed here are strictly my own.

The Tattooist Of Auschwitz had me at the title. I have a weak spot for WWII historical fiction and the promise of a story from the POV of the tattooist of Auschwitz sounded intriguing. I have been looking forward to pick up this title, and there is no doubt that this is an excellent read. The Tattooist Of Auschwitz is based on true events, as the author has interviewed the real Tetovierer and this book is his account of his time in Auschwitz. A truly fascinating, emotional and heartbreaking account of how he tried to survive in the Polish concentration camp during the war...The writing flows and the author did an excellent job writing down Lale's story without interfering. It was intriguing to see the daily life at the camp through the Tetovierer's eyes... WWII historical fiction fans will love this book. Make sure to have some tissues ready just in case, because it's hard to keep it dry especially in the final part of this novel. And that is coming from someone who normally has a heart of stone and almost never sheds tears when reading.

An incredible book. It is hard to summarize how many emotions I experienced, from fear to joy, to disgust, through sadness and everything in between. It is a book that puts things into perspective. But it is also a fascinating concept, knowing that history is generally written by the victors. How did others perceive Lale? A question which will never be answered.

I’m not sure you can ever read too many real-life perspectives of Auschwitz. I can imagine being sucked in; trying to absorb more and more, jigsaw together a picture from the infinite, varied, individual experiences. Like the need to pick up every single audio telephone in the Imperial War Museum’s Holocaust exhibition, (which is entirely worth doing.) For this reason alone, this book is unmissable.

It’s a readable, sensitive, morally complicated and engrossing story. Lale Sokolov volunteers to go to Auschwitz, in the hope of saving his family. He is naturally optimistic and determined to survive, any way he can, and secures himself the job of Tetovierer, or Tattooist. It is a (relatively) privileged position and allows him extra rations, a room of his own and a certain level of protection. He constantly shares his small bounty with other inmates, but the most heart-breaking aspect of the novel is the sense of how he questions himself and his actions. As if he is anything other than a victim. As if there were other choices he could have made.

But despite the fascination, and inherent emotional power, of the subject matter; this is still a novel, and a love story. And, for me, the love story was oddly uncompelling. Lale falls for a fellow inmate, Gita, and the plot follows their story. But Gita as a character doesn’t feel very filled out. I still don’t know what it was about her that he loved. It’s Lale himself that shines through the pages and that creates a slight tension -- as though Lale wanted to tell Gita’s story, but the author just wanted to tell his.

Strangely, I got more of a sense of Gita from the ‘Author’s Note’ at the end, than from the pages preceding it. In fact, the ‘note’ is where the tears in this book are most likely to come. I’m not sure if this is a success of the book, that we’re so invested in the lives described that the extra details are so moving; or a failure of the book, that the real power and interest lies in the bits the author decided to leave out. Perhaps it’s best to judge this novel on its own merits, and then hope there’ll be a sequel.

This book is amazing, it is a true story of life in Auschwitz and Birkenhau and it's quite hard to read in places but as much as could be the story has been proven as factual. Lale was a Slovanian Jew and he was taken to the concentration camp to await is fate. He was very lucky as the tattooist singles him out to assist him and that may have saved him from imminent death, he went on to tattoo more people and one of them is Gita who he falls immediately in love with but will he ever get to talk to her? They spend 3 years in the camps and the things that happen to him and also the other inmates are told in depth and with sensitivity by Heather Morris who was given the go ahead by Lale himself. I smiled and I cried in parts so be warned if you are reading it on your commute make sure you have tissues with you. A definate 5* from me.
Thank you NetGalley for the copy of the book.

The story told in this book, of Lale Sokolov and his partner Gita, and their struggle to survive the horrendous circumstances in Auschwitz-Berkenau during WWII. If this review were solely of the power and hope of this story, I would have no hesitation in giving it five stars. This true story of love, hope, survival, and the atrocious human cost of the Holocaust is powerful, moving, and almost too horrendous to bear. That both of them survived beyond Auschwitz and went on to live long lives together, remaining in love, is an unforgettable story which I read in a single sitting on a Monday night, completely enthralled.

However, I take serious issue with the presentation and marketing of this book. With Heather Morris credited as the only author, and marketed as a fiction book, it does a disservice to the story of Lale and Gita. This is not fiction. This is a non-fiction book, and shouldn’t be marketed as fiction. Nothing in this book, the foreword, the afterword, the acknowledgements, suggests that Heather Morris had anything to do with the plot, the development, or the structure of this book, other than to frame the story of Lale and Gita as it happened. I really feel like this book is a memoir, written with the assistance of Heather Morris, or a biography, a snapshot of a true story. It’s not fiction, or historical fiction, and to mark it as such (and even the book categorises itself as historical fiction) is to do a disservice to it.

My other huge complaint about this book was that it was adapted from what was originally written as a screenplay. And boy, does that show. The narration is stark, with no emotion or description other than what is absolutely necessary. It’s so clear that this was a screenplay, and all of the emotion, the framing, the detail that makes it real, was supposed to be provided by the actors, by the direction, and by the production of the film.

So as a book it’s stark. Not in a way which makes it feel like a stylistic choice, but in a way which makes it feel like a lazy adaptation of an alternative media.

The story, the tale of Lale and Gita is so memorable. But the framing and the presentation of it lets it down so badly. To allow Lale’s words to tell his tale with assistance from Heather Morris would, I think, have been a better tribute to this story of love, and perseverance, but to categorise this story as historical fiction and market it as a novel is to do a huge injustice to it.

Firstly, thank you to NetGalley for a free eARC of this book in return for an unbiased review. This book was absolutely amazing, it follows the true story of a holocaust survivor and his time in the clutches of the Nazi's. Once I finished this book I cried for a good 20 minutes, full on sobbing, because this book is so powerful. It is written beautifully and gives such an insight into the world that was created to dehumanise people, and yet still there was hope throughout. This is definitely a must read and I need to get this book in a physical format so that I can read it again. Absolutely amazing.