The Tattooist of Auschwitz, by Heather Morris

I am often of the mindset that every good World War II book has already been written. Of course there are some exceptions. I loved All the Light You Cannot See; The Book Thief was good, but generally, I believe books such as Ellie Wiesel’s Night and Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl are the best ways to learn about what it meant to be a Jew in Nazi Germany. Despite this personal philosophy, I was captivated by a clever title which led me to The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

As I flipped through the book again, trying to recall my past thoughts via my annotations, I was reminded of just how much I despised this book. Not even five pages in, I found my first criticism. In summary, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is a disingenuous account for what real people went through during The Holocaust as author, Heather Morris fictionalizes the story of Lale Sokolov.

Lale Sokolov was real. Lale Sokolov did experience The Holocaust where he met his wife, a fellow prisoner. And Lale Sokolov really was the tattooist of Auschwitz. However, my real first criticism starts with the front cover where we see “based on the powerful true story of love and survival.” Do you know what is even better to put on the cover? “The powerful true story of love and survival.” If the story is so powerful, why can you not let the story tell itself? Why must we change the details and add unnecessary plot so that what we do get to read is just a shell of that powerful story?

The Tattooist of Auschwitz tells the story of Lale Sokolov’s experience in the prison camp, Auschwitz. During his first days in the camp, he makes eye contact with a girl and falls in love. The two spend their days together after “work” and grow close together, falling more and more hopelessly in love with each chapter. These chapters, skipping sometimes months at a time, follow Lale and his love as they pass the days in each other’s arms.

This description sounds like a Hallmark movie. In fact, the only modern comparison I can make is if Hallmark decided to make a cheesy love story that just so happens to take place on 9/11, where the handsome man and stunning women embrace in the sunset. This is the level of disconnect that I felt. Morris made the horrific Auschwitz camp feel like a walk in the park. In fact, we even start to sympathize with one of the Nazi guards. This irreverent approach for such a scene does the utmost disservice for the man Lale Sokolov must have been.

Secondly, it is Morris’s word choice that created even more separation from the reality of 1940’s Auschwitz. The entire dialogue is spoken in slang English as though spoken from a 21st century 15 year old boy. At no point could I identify with Lale’s character as a European Jew. And this raises another frustration; Lale, being in the camp for being Jewish, at no point recognizes a form of God. Morris even goes as far to routinely mention “the Jews” praying to their “god” while Lale watched from a distance. Yes, Morris went as far as to not even capitalize the ‘g’ in the God of the Jewish faith. By doing so, Morris creates a dissonance between Lale and the overarching reason that he ended up in Auschwitz in the first place.

In conclusion, I should have listened to my own philosophy. The best WWII books have been written. Anything that is published now is just a way to use real tragedies as a backdrop for a made up story. I’m sure Lale Sokolov really did face many struggles in between the months that Heather Morris glosses over. I’m sure his story really was powerful. I would have loved to hear the true story of love and survival as opposed to the retirement home setting that I read. After reading The Tattooist of Auschwitz, I think I would have done well there. In fact, if this whole post-grad thing doesn’t work out, I may try it out for a couple months; you know, escape the world, try to find myself a little bit.