Beautiful story of survival in harrowing historical backdrop

filled star filled star filled star filled star star unfilled
bookmarkonthewall Avatar

By

โ€™๐™„๐™› ๐™ฎ๐™ค๐™ช ๐™ฌ๐™–๐™ ๐™š ๐™ช๐™ฅ ๐™ž๐™ฃ ๐™ฉ๐™๐™š ๐™ข๐™ค๐™ง๐™ฃ๐™ž๐™ฃ๐™œ, ๐™ž๐™ฉ ๐™ž๐™จ ๐™– ๐™œ๐™ค๐™ค๐™™ ๐™™๐™–๐™ฎ.โ€™ This novel is based on the true account of Lale Sokolov who was transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau during the Holocaust. Heโ€™s given a job of tattooing all the prisoners arriving in the concentration camps. Lale falls in love with Gita, one of the prisoners he meets waiting in line to be tattooed. This is a powerful story of Lale fighting for their love and survival.

This account is raw and beautiful. The reader understands why Lale decides to take up the job of the ๐™๐™–๐™ฉ๐™ค๐™ฌ๐™ž๐™š๐™ง๐™š๐™ง in order to survive and in turn help others by obtaining extra food rations and getting medicine. I donโ€™t know much about the inhumane events of the Holocaust so this is an astonishing insight on some of the horrific things that were inflicted upon the prisoners.

The writing is fairly dispassionate and simple, which can seem jarring against the description of the atrocities that happened to the prisoner. In a way though, I think Heather Morris wishes to tell Laleโ€™s story in a matter of fact way, which is exactly what Lale and his fellow prisoners had to bear witness to the atrocities every day while surviving in the camps.

This story opens the readerโ€™s eyes to the intimate details of events during the Holocaust. Itโ€™s really sad to read what happened to hundreds of thousands of prisoners but Lale and Gitaโ€™s story of love and survival shines a light amidst the darkness. Iโ€™m now eager to read ๐Ÿ…ฒ๐Ÿ…ธ๐Ÿ…ป๐Ÿ…บ๐Ÿ…ฐ๏ธŽโ€™๐Ÿ†‚ ๐Ÿ…น๐Ÿ…พ๏ธŽ๐Ÿ†„๐Ÿ†๐Ÿ…ฝ๐Ÿ…ด๐Ÿ†ˆ, the follow up to this novel.