To hell and back, with love

Geetu Vaid

Aheart-warming  tale of a romance blooming in the midst of the bloodbath and the brutality of Holocaust fits in perfectly with the February air suffused with the celebration of love in its myriad hues. The fact that Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris is based on a true story gives it an extra edge. The story, which was shared with Morris decades later by Lale Sokolov, the Tatowierer at Auschwitz-Birkenau during WWII, has all the ingredients of a touching and powerful love story. 

Lale, who is an educated Slovakian Jew, volunteers to work for the Germans to save his family. Herded into the dreaded Auschwitz in 1942, Lale, prisoner number 32407, is given the task of tattooing other prisoners brought to the camp. It is here that he falls in love with a fellow prisoner, Gita. Fuelled with the will to survive hell, he goes all out to save his beloved from hardships, putting his life on the line multiple times for his love. He is also the gold-hearted do-gooder who uses his privileged position to mitigate the sufferings of other prisoners in the death hole that Auschwitz was. Gita and Lale, however, are not the usual star-crossed lovers as they survive the war and the atrocities to start a new life in a new world. 

Though Morris sticks to her promise of relating Lale and Gita’s story as was told to her by Lale, making ‘memory and history waltz’ with her narrative has not been smooth for her.  While there has been conflict with the family of Lale over the representation of certain facts and details, the fact that the story existed as a screenplay for 12 years is reflected in the narration and writing style. Somewhere, it fails to touch the heart. The horrors of a concentration camp fail to make the reader feel the anguish and desperation of the young lovers who are nurturing the delicate feelings of love in the midst of cruelty and savagery. 

The fact that Lale is able to work his way through the cruel guards by bribing and can move around the camp with least difficulty and meet Gita, seems unrealistic. Morris misses the bus when it comes to creating that empathetic ambience. At the most she hands you a third-person prism. However, the Afterword by Lale and Gita's son Gary Sokolov is touching and adds depth to their love story by recounting some minute details of their lives after living through hell.

WWII has been the setting for some extremely poignant and touching stories. Though good in parts, the Tattooist of Auschwitz doesn't fall in that league.