THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ

AUTHOR: Heather Morris

This book is a fictionalised memoir based on the life of Ludwig 'Lale' Eisenberg/Sokolov, a survivor of the concentration camp of Birkenau. He soon finds himself performing the horrifying role of tattooing the numbers onto the 'workers' entering the camp.

As horrifying as the war is to me, reading accounts and seeing images and videos, its a very different kind of devastating to experience it through someone who lived through it, the uncertainty of a 'tomorrow' , the meagre food and being surrounded by death of all kind, is something that Morris ensured came alive in this book. 

What she also made sure shined was that not all had lost hope, just the mere thought of seeing out till the end when the SS had to pay for the many horrors they inflicted, or even to a better place, a brighter tomorrow, this hope drove many to live on.

The book itself immerses you into a tumultuous experience of emotions, while you feel guilty somehow, with the life you have right now, you also feel an anger rising and for me, an incapability to understand the need for the torturous experience inflicted itself. However, I found myself realising in many places that the book is not a first hand account but still the people I'm reading of, are real and hence some things didn't quite tie seamlessly.

Lale as the tattooist and a survivor had a better life, as he accepted himself, than many at camp, and I think this is what makes the story just as impactful with just bits and pieces of the many deaths Lale witnessed. Throughout the many pains, he falls in love and ends up in the arms of the girl he fell in love with after his own liberation, and makes a life for himself and his love, a family and wealth.

The story was swift and smooth, and each page almost seamlessly turned into another and I finished this book pretty quick

Literature like this, is easy to follow and read in a single sitting and is so important to read and experience. It reminds me of how cruel we are capable of being, and to an extent how easy it is to be so.