Review by New York Times Review
LISTENING TO this novel on my iPhone during the past week - while clutching a subway strap, trotting on a treadmill, filling my basket at Trader Joe's, biking down Amsterdam Avenue, walking my dog around the Harlem Meer - I began to notice how many other people in the city wear headphones as they go about their daily lives. Having recently moved back into New York City from the suburbs, where I mostly listened to audiobooks in my car, I was struck by how different it is listening to a book on headphones while doing other things. On the one hand it's a peculiarly intimate experience; the narrator speaks directly into your ear, as if to you alone. On the other hand, it can be hard to concentrate on the story, particularly if it's nonlinear or experimental. "The Tattooist of Auschwitz" is neither of these. If I hadn't read that Heather Morris originally wrote this novel as a screenplay, I might've guessed: The story clips along without extraneous exposition, and the dialogue is snappy and convincing. As a reader, I'm usually drawn to dense wordplay and complicated perspectives. But as a multitasking listener, I found the straightforward, chronological narrative easy and pleasurable to follow. Based on the author's interviews with a Jewish Holocaust survivor, "The Tattooist of Auschwitz" is the story of Lale Sokolov, Prisoner 32407, who was transported from Slovakia to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Birkenau, Poland, in 1942 and assigned the task of tattooing numbers on his fellow prisoners' arms. As a Tätowierer, Lale was in a privileged but morally compromised position, "performing an act of defilement on people of his own faith," as the narrator notes. Unlike most prisoners, Lale had agency. He was given his own room, fed extra rations and allowed freedoms most prisoners were denied, like traversing the camp alone and visiting both male and female barracks. In Morris's telling, Lale is shrewd, charming and self-aware. The moment he enters the gates, he vows he will leave the camp alive; he notes the Nazis' habits and routines, looking for any signs of weakness. He speaks seven languages: French, Russian, German, Slovak, Yiddish, Hungarian and Polish. This ability is his superpower. Toggling among languages, he serves as a guide, spy and interpreter. He knows what the guards are saying when they don't realize he's listening; he speaks Yiddish when he doesn't want them to understand. He mediates disputes and serves as a translator. Eventually he takes risks to save the lives of other prisoners. The audio version of this book is a particularly strong marriage of narrator and material. The British actor Richard Armitage uses an impressive variety of actorly tools as he shifts perspective from Lale to Gita, the Slovakian prisoner Lale falls in love with; Baretski, Lale's commander; a few other prisoners; and some SS officers, including real-life figures like Rudolf Hess and the notorious Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. Armitage wrings every ounce of feeling, drama and even humor - mostly at the expense of the dimwitted Baretski - from this earnest story. He skillfully conveys the cruel, mocking tone that the SS officers and guards often used with prisoners as a way of reinforcing their power. Even when he isn't portraying a specific character, Armitage keeps the listener engaged and alert by modulating his tone, sometimes within individual sentences. At times it seems as if there are two narrators, so often, and ably, does Armitage vary his delivery. The relationship between Lale and Gita, with its progression from love at first sight to giddy infatuation to deep commitment, sometimes strains credulity. It's hard to imagine that malnourished prisoners with lesions and shaved heads might have had the autonomy, impulse and ability to carry on a torrid love affair. Apparently, they did - in real life, Lale and Gita ended up together. But the language of romance can seem jarringly out of place when contrasted with the starvation, mutilation and murder of thousands around them. The author heads off this criticism by having the characters raise this question themselves. "Is it wrong of me to want to escape reality for a bit?" Gita asks her friends. No, it isn't. And to be fair, Morris works hard to convey the devastating reality of daily life in a concentration camp. Her compassion for her characters, combined with Armitage's riveting delivery, makes this an immensely satisfying book to listen to, whatever else you might happen to be doing. CHRISTINA BAKER KLINE is the author, most recently, of the novel "A Piece of the World."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 14, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
Australian author Morris' first novel is based heavily on the memories of Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew who spent almost three years in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. For most of that time, he tattooed numbers onto the arms of fellow prisoners, one of whom he would later marry. Like Lale, Gita was Slovakian, and with some maneuvering by him, she was assigned to a relatively safe job, working as a secretary in the administrative building. Morris tells their story in rapidly moving present tense, in which the horrors of the camps contrast with the growing love between them. Lale comes across as a sharp-witted businessman with a touch of the con artist, smuggling out jewels and currency in sausages and chocolate. Although one might suspect that there's far more to his past than is revealed here, much of Lale's story's complexity makes it onto the page. And even though it's clear that Lale will survive, Morris imbues the novel with remarkable suspense.--Margaret Quamme Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Based on a true story, Morris's debut fictionalizes the romance between two concentration camp prisoners during WWII. In 1942, Lale, a Slovakian Jew, is given the position of tattooist, tasked with numbering the arm of every new inmate who enters Auschwitz-Birkenau. He uses his position to procure black market items, which he trades away in return for favors. One day, he tattoos the arm of a young woman named Gita and promptly falls in love with her. They begin meeting on Sundays, the only day of rest in the camps. He vows to Gita that he will marry her when they are freed, a boast that Gita is dubious of but nevertheless clings to. Lale even becomes something of a guardian angel to Gita, providing her with penicillin when she contracts typhus. Separated at the end of the war by the fleeing SS, Lale and Gita set out to find one another again in postwar Europe. To many, this book will be most appreciated for its powerful evocation of the everyday horrors of life as a prisoner in a concentration camp, while others will be heartened by the novel's message of how true love can transcend even the most hellishly inhuman environments. This is a perfect novel for book clubs and readers of historical fiction. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
DEBUT Originally intended as a screenplay, this compelling debut is based on the life of Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew imprisoned for almost three years at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he served as the tattooist marking prisoners. Soon after the 25-year-old arrives at Birkenau, he contracts typhus and is left for dead. Rescued by fellow inmates and Pepan, an older French man and tattooist, Lale learns Pepan's trade, which, along with fluency in six languages, allows Lale privileges of a single room and extra food. His sole mission is to survive the unbelievable horrors, until he meets young Gita. Then he vows to marry her. Despite the bleakness and death surrounding them, Lale and Gita's passionate love blooms in their precious moments alone. Readers will root for the two despite the many obstacles they face. VERDICT Historical fiction and memoir fans will be gripped by this unforgettable Holocaust story. [See Prepub Alert, 3/26/18.]-Laura Jones, Argos Community Schs., IN © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An unlikely love story set amid the horrors of a Nazi death camp.Based on real people and events, this debut novel follows Lale Sokolov, a young Slovakian Jew sent to Auschwitz in 1942. There, he assumes the heinous task of tattooing incoming Jewish prisoners with the dehumanizing numbers their SS captors use to identify them. When the Ttowierer, as he is called, meets fellow prisoner Gita Furman, 17, he is immediately smitten. Eventually, the attraction becomes mutual. Lale proves himself an operator, at once cagey and courageous: As the Ttowierer, he is granted special privileges and manages to smuggle food to starving prisoners. Through female prisoners who catalog the belongings confiscated from fellow inmates, Lale gains access to jewels, which he trades to a pair of local villagers for chocolate, medicine, and other items. Meanwhile, despite overwhelming odds, Lale and Gita are able to meet privately from time to time and become lovers. In 1944, just ahead of the arrival of Russian troops, Lale and Gita separately leave the concentration camp and experience harrowingly close calls. Suffice it to say they both survive. To her credit, the author doesn't flinch from describing the depravity of the SS in Auschwitz and the unimaginable suffering of their victimsno gauzy evasions here, as in Boy in the Striped Pajamas. She also manages to raise, if not really explore, some trickier issuesthe guilt of those Jews, like the tattooist, who survived by doing the Nazis' bidding, in a sense betraying their fellow Jews; and the complicity of those non-Jews, like the Slovaks in Lale's hometown, who failed to come to the aid of their beleaguered countrymen.The writing is merely serviceable, and one can't help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as nonfiction. Still, this is a powerful, gut-wrenching tale that is hard to shake off. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
