“Paints a picture of the worst and best of humanity” – Krystle reviews The Tattooist of Auschwitz

Author: Heather Morris

My Rating: 4 out of 5 Hearts

I finished The Tattooist of Auschwitz and immediately started writing this review because I wanted to give you my real reaction. This story was difficult for me to read, I actually had to take a break after reading half of it and come back to it. Reading a love story set in a concentration camp was strange. Like all holocaust stories, it paints a picture of the worst and best of humanity at the same time. How in the darkest of times, in the worst of circumstances humans can still find the capacity to love. How survival can cause people to do things they never imagined. And how something done for survival is different than something done for pure evil.

Lale and Gita’s story is a happy one, although it’s beginning is dark and full of fear. Lale describes love at first sight when meeting Gita, but “first sight” for them was when he was tattooing a number on her arm. The story is filled with moments like this, that in any other romance gives me the warm fuzzies, but in this story it left me in shock.

It reads a bit like a memoir, but I suggest you look at it more like historical fiction that is based on a true story, because there is some controversy over the accuracy of some of the details. Lale and Gita were real people, they really met and fell in love at Auschwitz-Birkenau, they both really survived over 3 years there, they both worked for the Nazis in the camp, and they both were separated when the camp was abandoned and went on to find each other and marry after the war. Gita died in 2003 and Lale followed her in 2006. Any discrepancy in details doesn’t negate the fact that theirs is an incredible love story.

After closing the book, I found myself looking at my own life through a different lens for a moment. It made me want to savor all the love and happiness in my life, and reminded me not to take anything for granted. And I think any story that causes you to look at your life with gratitude is worth the recommendation!