Results: The Tattooist Of Auschwitz

It was a part of his life he chose to not talk about for over fifty years. For more than 50 years, Lale Sokolov lived with a secret - one born in the horrors of wartime Europe, in a place that witnessed some of the worst of man's inhumanity to man. It would not be shared until he was in his 80s, thousands of miles from that place. Lale had been the Tattooist of Auschwitz. He survived being at Auschwitz by tattooing serial numbers on the arms of those at the camp who weren't sent to the gas chambers. These forced tattoos, the numbers stark against pale forearms, have become one of the most recognizable symbols of the Holocaust and its deadliest camp. Only prisoners at Auschwitz and its sub-camps, Birkenau and Monowitz, were tattooed. Essentially these tattoos represented the dehumanization of these people, stripping away all their dignity as well as their name. They became only a number. Have you ever seen tattoos like this one, and did you know what they were?

Lale did not want to be seen as, nor did he ever feel, he was a collaborator with the Nazis -- he did what he had to do to survive. He wasn't given a choice. He tattooed hundreds of thousands of prisoners -- but one prisoner he tattooed was different. When he held the forearm of the young girl and tattooed the numbers 3 4 9 0 2, he felt sickened and horrified. He felt there was something about this girl that he would never forget. He learned that her name was Gita - she was in the women's camp, Birkenau. With the help of Lale's personal SS guard, he would smuggle letters to her. Letters led to secretive visits outside her block. He tried to take care of her, sneaking her his extra rations, even getting her moved to a better work station. He tried to give her hope. And a year later, after they had been liberated, he found her and married her. They eventually emigrated to Melbourne, where they had a son, and lived until GIta died in 2003. It was only after her death, that Lale felt he could talk about what happened and what he did to survive. He connected with a writer, Heather Morris, and asked her to tell his story. In addition to Lale and Gita's love story, the Tattooist of Auschwitz, the book Morris has written, brings to light a new piece of Holocaust history. The process of corroborating the anecdotes Morris gathered from Lale was key. Have you read the book?

The novel, which came out in 2018, has been adapted into a TV series now streaming on Peacock. Lale's story is one of the most life-affirming, courageous, unforgettable and human stories of the Holocaust and a tale of the very best of humanity in the very worst of circumstances.. Will you watch this series?

As in any book based on real life events, and the adapted series, some of the elements have been altered or enhanced for dramatic story telling. Some critics feel this series took too many liberties and criticized it for historical inaccuracies, but at its root it is a love story set in a horrific setting. Does it bother you to watch a TV show or movie that does play with historical facts?