105 pages • 3 hours read
Heather MorrisThe Tattooist of Auschwitz
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapter 28-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 28 Summary
Bratislava has been greatly deformed by bombing and war. There is nothing for Lale here, and he decides to “find a way back to Krompachy, some two hundred and fifty miles away” (245). The journey takes four days, but he arrives at his family home, his mother’s garden strangled by weeds.
An old woman in the opposite house, Mrs. Molnar, recognizes him. She reveals that Lale’s sister, Goldie, is still alive, and living in their old house. Goldie faints when she opens the door and sees her brother. The two have a tearful reunion.
The news she presents is grim. Lale’s parents were taken by the Nazis shortly after he was. Their brother, Max, joined the partisans and died in combat. His wife and kids were taken as well. However, on a positive note, Goldie has fallen in love and married a Russian; her last name is now Sokolov. Her husband will be returning soon from a business trip. Lale tells her only that “he has been in a work camp in Poland and that he is now home” (247).
He tells Goldie and Mrs. Molnar about his love for Gita. He knows in his heart that she is still alive, but the only information he has to go about finding Gita is her last name: Furman.
Lale must return to Bratislava, where the returning Slovakian Holocaust survivors arrive. He purchases the only form of transportation he can: a horse and a small cart. Goldie tells him, to find Gita, and he sets off.
Once back in Bratislava, Lale can only plan to meet every incoming train: he has no other means of communication with Gita. He waits for two weeks to no avail. The stationmaster suggests he registers with the Red Cross; the organization is working to reunite loved ones.
On the main street, Gita “sees a funny-looking cart being drawn by a horse. A young man stands casually in the back” (249). It is Lale.
Lale jumps from the cart; time seems to stand still. The two drop to their knees. Lale asks her to marry him. She agrees. The two, along with Gita’s friends, go out into the crowded streets of Bratislava.
Epilogue Summary
Lale changes his last name to Sokolov, as it is “a name more readily accepted than Eisenberg in Soviet-controlled Slovakia” (251). Lale and Gita marry in October 1945.
Lale starts an import business, which quickly grows. They prosper, even under communism. Lale and Gita support the establishment of Israel and work to be smuggled out of the country.
A neighbor reports their activity, and they are arrested by Soviet authorities. Lale’s business is nationalized, and Lale is sentenced to two years in prison. He stays there for some time, until a visiting Catholic priest aids him in a plan to get a few day’s leave from prison.
Once out on leave, they prepare to escape the country. They leave most possessions, except for a painting of a Romany woman. They escape to Vienna, and then, eventually, to Paris.
Lale and Gita go on to settle in Melbourne, Australia, where they set up a textile business. They struggle to have a child. Eventually, “to their great surprise and delight, Gita got pregnant” (254). They name the child Gary.
Lale and Gita live out the rest of their lives “full, with a child, friends, a successful business […] all supported by a love that no hardship had been able to break” (254).
Chapter 28-Epilogue Analysis
The tone of the final section of the novel is hopeful in the face of great loss. The city of Bratislava symbolizes the state of its citizens’ lives. Though war-torn and largely ruined by World War II, it has survived. The Slovakians begin the work of rebuilding both their city and their community. However, they persist: the skills Lale and Gita possesses and further develop though their ordeals serve them well in the world beyond the camps.
Lale’s business sense, honed through the many black-market transactions he made while in Birkenau, help him in Soviet-controlled Slovakia. In a sense, Lale and Gita have gone from one prison to another. The USSR greatly stifles free trade, and as business owners, Lale and Gita are at risk. When Lale ends up in prison, he is helped by a Catholic priest. This experience is juxtaposed with his time in Sauer Werke: there, he pretended to be Catholic in order to remain in the safer camp. This is the second time this faith, which is not his own, has saved him.
When they flee to Australia, one of the few things Gita takes with them is a portrait of a Romany woman. This indicates two things. First, Lale has never forgotten his adoptive Romany family. Second, Gita recognizes and respects the importance of this to Lale. Though she reprimanded Lale for excessively grieving over the Romanies, this shows that she has come to accept what they meant to him. The portrait is reminiscent of Lale’s friend, Nadya. Nadya’s name meant “hope.” The portrait of the woman now hangs in their son Gary’s house. Against all odds, Lale and Gita have carried hope through their trials and passed it along to the next generation.
