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.
Themes
Trauma
Trauma theory examines the way that trauma effects those afflicted with it. Due to the horrific events of the Holocaust, survivors were more often than not beset by lingering, distressful effects of their experience for the rest of their lives. One major effect of trauma is a distortion of the way one experiences time. While the event that causes the trauma ends, the effects live on. One way this is expressed in The Tattooist of Auschwitz is the novel being written in the present tense. Though the events in Lale’s life happened long ago, Morris offers the events in a sort of eternal present, indicative of the way that trauma lingers. Lale and Gita were freed from the physical space of Auschwitz, but not the horrors that they endured while they were imprisoned there.
Trauma changes people. Toward the end of their imprisonment, Lale looks at Gita, Cilka, and Dana, and notes that “they are broken, damaged young women” whose “futures have been derailed, and there will be no getting back on the same track” (209). Their experiences in Auschwitz will live on; no matter what kind of life they build beyond the electric fences, their fates have been inexorably altered.
Lale notices trauma-based change in Cilka, who was, at first, “seemingly untouched by the horror around her” (87). After continued sexual abuse by Shwarzhuber, she has changed dramatically. In one scene, the two lie in bed together; Schwarzhuber’s hands explore her body as she stares into nothing, feeling nothing. Numb” (122). In response to repeated sexual trauma, Cilka has receded into a nearly catatonic state of emotional shock. Her lively nature has been lost to repeated abuse. Numbness is a defense mechanism against the pain.
A more benign expression of this trauma is seen in the way that Lale and Gita live after the birth of their son, Gary. In an afterword to the novel, Gary writes that food “was a primary focus” for Lale and Gita, and that Gita “took pride in […] Chicken schnitzels, cold cuts, and myriad cakes and fruit” (254). After three years facing the trauma of starvation and malnutrition, Lale and Gita’s relationship to food has been permanently changed. An ample supply of food represents a stable, safe life. Feeding her son and his friends is Gita’s way of remedying one of the many traumas of her time in the concentration camp.
“To save one is to save the world”
This phrase is first said by Lale in Chapter 3, when Lale learns of Aron’s sacrifice for Lale’s benefit. The phrase is derived from the Talmud, the holy compendium of Hebrew texts, legends, and rabbinical teachings, customs, and interpretations of Jewish scripture. It is essentially the imperative to do what good one can in the face of evil. To destroy one life is the same as destroying the entire world; to save one life is equal to saving the whole world.
This theme is echoed throughout the novel by the actions of many characters, but predominately by Lale, Victor, Jakub, and Pepan. Essentially, this is the idea that saving even one person in the face of widespread death and atrocity can have a ripple effect. One good deed may lead to another; one saved life may lead to another saved life.
The first instance of this theme playing out in the novel is through Aron. When Lale falls deathly ill, afflicted by typhus, Aron pleads with the SS to spare Lale. While the officers are distracted, Aron drags Lale’s unconscious body off of the corpse-hauling wagon, with the help of Pepan, who happens by at that moment. Pepan tells Lale, “‘Thank the man who pushed you from the cart. It was his courage that saved you from the jaws of death’” (29).
Aron’s sacrifice inspires the other members of Lale’s block to help care for him as he recovers. Because of this, Lale is able to become the tattooist and use his new position to benefit his fellow prisoners in any way he can. It is impossible to say how many people Lale may have saved; however, Gita would not have survived her bout of typhus if Lale had died early on.
The Cost of Survival
Lale, Jakub, and the Sonderkommandos must sacrifice their morals in order to survive. Survival is the base biological drive shared by all organisms, from animals to humans. Human society tends to provide at least some baseline that ensures or at least eases the basic struggle to survive. However, when individuals or groups are forced into a state of exception, where no law or moral imperative can protect them from injury, starvation, or death, the drive to live becomes the fundamental state of being. Self-preservation becomes more important than morality; judgment is reserved for retrospection. The Holocaust, and specifically the horrendous conditions prisoners endured, proved to be just such a state.
As a class of Holocaust victim, the Sonderkommandos—the Jewish prisoners forced on pain of death to work in the gas chambers and crematoria—represent an extreme example of the cost of survival. These prisoners are described in the novel as “defeated, ready to do a job no one on earth would volunteer for: removing corpses from the gas chamber and putting them into the ovens” (139). While this may seem an extreme act of betrayal, many authors and Holocaust victims have pointed out that it is important to reserve judgment. They were forced into a position most human beings will never have to be put in. When Lale first sees the Sonderkommandos, he “tries to make eye contact with them, to let them know he, too, works for the enemy. He, too, has chosen to stay alive for as long as he can, by performing an act of defilement on people of his own faith” (139).
Initially, Lale’s attitude toward morality is steadfast: he refuses to sacrifice his own morals and idea of humanity in order to survive. He thinks, “We stand in shit but let us not drown in it” (4). Lale is initially reluctant to become Pepan’s assistant and begin tattooing incoming prisoners. But Pepan reminds him, “‘If you don’t take the job, someone will who has less soul than you do, and he will hurt more people’” (31). Lale, at least, will be able to provide small acts of kindness, using the relative safety of his position, for example, to smuggle extra food to his fellow prisoners, or to help certain prisoners, such as Jakub.
Like Lale, Jakub—the giant American Jew Lale hid from selection after tattooing—must sacrifice his morals in order to survive. Because of his immense physical strength, the SS assign Jakub to the role of torturer and executioner. When Lale is caught in his smuggling activities, he is sent to Jakub, so the large man can torture the names of Lale’s warehouse contacts from him. Lale recognizes and respects Jakub’s decision to live no matter the cost and bears him no ill will. The will to live becomes a moral imperative in and of itself. Jakub, in turn, respects Lale, and eases the torture as much as he can, without arousing the SS officers’ suspicion. He wants to harm as few innocents as possible.
