| It's been a while since I have been completely enveloped by a story. However, THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ is a book I could not put down. Unsure if I wanted to tackle the darkness of yet another holocaust story, I put off reading it for over a year. Upon completion of the book, the story did not strike me as dark, but rather I finished the book with a feeling of wonder at the potential power of a "little thing" called hope. The series of events presented in this historical fiction that led to Lale, the leading character, becoming the lead tattooist in Auschwitz could be attributed to a bit of "luck" or fate. Just one minor twist of a detail and the ending could have been so different. When Lale became ill, a friend put his own life on the line, taking the risk to pull Lale from the death cart and sneak him to the room of the camp's Tätowierer who nursed him back to health and afterwards offered Lale a job working with him. It wasn't long before Lale became lead tattooist, when the preceding Tatowierer was killed by the Germans. Lale's new position defined him as a collaborator with the enemy to others in the camps. He believed he was doing what he had to do in order to survive, and he used his position to help others, although with much risk to himself. Lale falls in love with a young woman named Gita who is also a prisoner in the camps. The book details a love that grows from infancy to all encompassing, as they struggle to remain alive for over two years under the cruelest of circumstances. They find the hope they need by reminding each other that they must survive in order to eventually be free to love each other, anytime and anywhere they wish. A good book tells a good story, and author Heather Morris does just that. A great book, in my opinion, is one in which the author not only tells a good story, but the reader begins to analyze the story, the characters and their choices, bringing one to a state of deep contemplation. This book did that for me. Evoked questions included but were not limited to the following: Why do some people cling to hope at all cost when others give up? Does hope begin when it is needed, or is it nurtured before necessary and come to life when it is necessary? What gives one individual the will to live when the same circumstances force others to choose death? How can humans become so evil and afflict such atrocities upon one another? What causes others to offer assistance even when it may mean their own demise? In what ways do racial barriers keep humans from seeing other individuals as equals? How quickly could humans fall back into a mindset that allows such widespread evil because certain groups of people do comply with someone's social, political or religious norm? The stories within the book are both heartbreaking and beautiful and while this book is a fictitious account of a portion of Ludwig Sokolov's life, the book's story shouts the truth that we do have choices, even in the worst circumstances. I gave this book five stars on Goodreads. |