The Tattooist of Auschwitz had been sitting on my pile for quite some time before I picked it up but once I did, I couldn’t put it down.
The book is based on an actual survivor of the death camp, a man who goes by the name Lale.
Instantly you can feel the compassion he has for his fellow man even in the darkest of places. He treated everyone with respect and kindness even in a world so dark and hopeless, he never gave up.
He becomes the tattooist during his incarceration, given the task to tattoo the numbers onto other prisoners. Here is where he meets Gita… She captures his heart in a moment. Even dirty and with a shaved head, she rocked his world.
The story follows his time in the camp and the things he does to make other prisoners' lives better while trying to steal moments with Gita.
The pace was slower than I usually like in a book but it worked so well. It gave you the time to really feel who Lale was and what he stood for. The lengths he went to and the dangers he put himself in just to make it a little better for others.
This story cut me to core. Our world today is full of hate and anger yet those prisoners had it so much worse and don’t act like people do today. It saddens me to think that this is what our world has come to but Lale and Gita come through it based on their love and their hope for a better tomorrow.
If you are looking for a book to tear your entire world apart and put you back together better than it found you, this is the book for you.
Being a hopeless romantic myself this book checked every box for me. Love and hope won in the end but it could have gone so badly wrong on so many levels. Every person Lale touched was better for knowing him. Have you been like that to someone today? If not then whatever personal things standing in your way of being a better person might need to be addressed because no matter what was thrown at Lale, he never treated anyone with anything less than kindness and respect. It really put my life into a whole new perspective.
5 stars for me.