The Tattooist of Auschwitz
Heather Morris, 2018
Historical fiction Contemporary fiction
A Slovakian Jew survives Auschwitz by tattooing numbers on new arrivals and finds love in the camp. A novel built on a real survivor's testimony. The prose stays plain and close to memory, carrying hope and grief side by side at a steady, gentle pace.
Feels like hope, grief and tenderness. About memory, love and family.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you read historical fiction drawn from survivor testimony and prefer quiet, human-scale storytelling to grand drama. The Auschwitz setting is unsparing, though, so the book can be emotionally heavy if you are sensitive to detailed Holocaust suffering.
Why read it
It gives a face and a voice to one survivor's account, showing how love and resolve persisted inside a place designed to erase people.
A page from the book
What a man promises himself when survival is not enough.
Lale makes a vow to himself: I will live to leave this place. I will walk out a free man. If there is a hell, I will see these murderers burn in it. Heather Morris.Heather Morris met the real Lale Sokolov in 2003; he dictated his story to her over three years, and she first wrote it as a screenplay.
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Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is The Tattooist of Auschwitz for me?
- You may like it if you read historical fiction drawn from survivor testimony and prefer quiet, human-scale storytelling to grand drama. The Auschwitz setting is unsparing, though, so the book can be emotionally heavy if you are sensitive to detailed Holocaust suffering.
- What is The Tattooist of Auschwitz like?
- The prose stays plain and close to memory, carrying hope and grief side by side at a steady, gentle pace. Feels like hope, grief and tenderness. About memory, love and family.
- What should I read after The Tattooist of Auschwitz?
- If you liked The Tattooist of Auschwitz, try Reminders of Him (Colleen Hoover), Night Road (Kristin Hannah) and Just for the Summer (Abby Jimenez).
A taste of the feed
The line between one bad night and a ruined life.
A good person who had one bad night. It happens to the best of us. The worst of us. All of us. Some of us are just luckier than others, and our bad moments have fewer casualties.
Reminders of Him · Colleen Hoover
Time doesn't heal so much as hand you something to wear over the wound.
Maybe time didn’t heal wounds exactly, but it gave you a kind of armor, or a new perspective. A way to remember with a smile instead of a sob.
Night Road · Kristin Hannah
Some people spend years being told their needs are too many.
You’re not asking too much,“ he said. ”You were just asking the wrong person. Ask me instead.
Just for the Summer · Abby Jimenez
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