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The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

I've never been one to read a ton of historical fiction, but this book absolutely blew me away. Taking place right in the midst of World War 2, Lale is a Jewish man from Slovakia who gets sent to the infamous concentration camp, Auschwitz. Separated from his family and hundreds of miles away from his home, Lale is still determined to keep a positive attitude in the midst of the horrible situation he has been thrown into. He quickly makes friends with the other prisoners, building a trust among them, and he eventually moves into a position of "power". . .as the "Tätowierer" of Auschwitz. His job is to tattoo identification numbers on each of the new prisoners that enter the concentration camp, which allows him more freedom to work on his plan to help save people throughout Auschwitz. However, trouble is brewing, and Lale doesn't know if he's gonna be enough to stop it.

Gita is a young woman whom Lale falls in love with during their time in the prison. When Lale first lays his eyes on Gita one day, he knows he is in love with her. Their relationship is kept mostly secret, and throughout the novel, readers can see how their relationship evolves during the trials of being prisoners. Not only is The Tattooist of Auschwitz a work about the horrors of the concentration camps throughout Germany and the rest of Europe, but it is also the story of a deep, unconditional love that can withstand anything. If two people love each other, they will find their way back to each other no matter what, and the closing of this novel is a beautiful representation of that.

One thing that I didn't realize until the end of the book is that Lale "Lali" and Gita were real people who actually were imprisoned in Auschwitz! Heather Morris took their story and wrote about it, though she still decided to dub the work as historical fiction rather than nonfiction because not every detail was exact to their actual story. Lali and Gita's son wrote a beautiful tribute at the end of the novel, and it was so cool to read about him as well!

I downloaded this novel from my library and had a week to read it before it had to be returned. I read it in three days and stayed up until 2 AM finishing the book one night. I highly, highly, highly recommend reading this book if World War 2 stories interest you. Every chapter was captivating and suspenseful, and I constantly found myself turning the pages and reading more than I had time for, haha. The Tattooist of Auschwitz is my favorite read of the year so far, and I plan to read Morris' next book, Cilka's Journey, as soon as I can.

5/5 stars!



*photo from Goodreads*

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