It was a love story that began most horrifyingly.
Lali Sokolov encountered Gita Fuhrmannova—the woman who would become his wife—when she stood before him emaciated and robbed of her dignity at the Auschwitz death camp.
Amidst the evil of the Nazi killing machine, Lali—himself a Jew who had been put to work under threat of death—tattooed a number on her arm like he had done to tens of thousands of people before her.
Decades later, millions of readers were captivated by the romance that resulted between them.
Following its publication in 2018, Heather Morris’ novel The Tattooist of Auschwitz swiftly gained international recognition.
It was founded on the testimony of Lali, who, while working for the Nazis in Nazi-occupied Poland, had tattooed prisoner numbers on hundreds of thousands of prisoners.
A new Sky adaptation of Morris’s novel is being released this week. The six-part series stars both Jonah Hauer-King and Harvey Keitel as Lali, while Polish actress Anna Próchniak portrays Gita.
Lali and Gita both made it through the Holocaust and were married in October 1945. For many years, Lali kept his story to himself. After Gita passed away, he finally told Morris everything.
In April 1942, the Nazis forced one volunteer from each Slovakian Jewish family to work for the German war machine.
Lali, who was born in Slovakia in 1916, was herded off to Auschwitz in a packed cattle train in horrendous conditions.
Like every other prisoner who was not immediately sent off to die, he was given a number, which became his name. His—32407—was tattooed on his arm by a French academic named Pepan.
He was initially sent to work on the construction of new housing blocks as the camp expanded.
Lali was taken care of by Pepan, who assigned him to work as his assistant after he became ill with typhoid shortly after arriving at Auschwitz.
One day, Lali was promoted to head tattoo artist when Pepan was transported out of Auschwitz.
An SS officer was assigned to watch over him as he worked.
Because of his role, he was given extra rations and ate in an administration building. He also slept in a single room rather than in a cramped hut in horrendous conditions.
And when there were no new prisoners to tattoo, he was given free time.
I hope the book gives it credit, but it’s unsettling to watch how history is starting to repeat itself in light of all of these insane marches, and I believe that this is only the beginning. We must never forget the past and learn from our mistakes.
True, in the past, Nazi Germany detested Jews and anything that didn’t conform to their conception of the Aryan race, but in the present era, it appears that this pattern is still being followed. Perhaps this time it isn’t the Jews, but we still punish everyone who is different, we seem to encourage hatred, and the majority fall for the propaganda. We haven’t learned anything from the past since we saw where this ended up the last time, and then there are those people who say it never happened, but it actually makes me think how lucky I am to be alive today.
And now the dark rises again across the world, marching in our cities, rampaging through our town, and nobody stops them as the present day’s atmosphere seems to develop towards a repeat, and as much as it was scary back then, it’s scary this time around as well, and we need to stop it before it’s too late.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 