The Tattooist of Auschwitz: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

It is April, 1942. Lale stands inside a crowded cattle car, which is part of a German train taking mass numbers of Jewish men to an unknown destination. The men standing around Lale sneer at his appearance, thinking he’s rich because he’s wearing a suit. They tell him that his upper-class lifestyle has clearly gotten him nowhere, since he’s in the same predicament as everyone else. In response, Lale only smiles at them, not wanting to cause a disturbance. In fact, when people speak to him, he replies with encouraging words, hoping to lift the overall spirit in the cattle car. They have been riding like this for two days, and Lale can already feel how different—which is to say, worse—he feels.

Next to Lale stands a young man who asks Lale how he has managed to stay so calm. He also asks where Lale thinks they’re being taken, but Lale simply responds by reminding the young man that, regardless of where they’re headed, they’re all there to make sure their families remain safe at home. When the other man, who introduces himself as Aron, says, “But what if—?” Lale tells him not to think in hypotheticals, instead urging him to follow whatever orders they receive. However, Aron suggests that they should try to fight the Nazis whenever they reach their destination, since the Jewish men outnumber the officers. Hearing this, Lale reminds Aron that the officers have guns and will be impossible for the men to defeat with mere fists, so Aron drops this idea.  

Lale and the others have been told they’ll be working for the Germans. Although some men resent Lale because he wears a suit, others look to him as an authority of sorts, asking him questions even though he has no extra information about what’s going to happen. All Lale knows is that he’s glad to have found a place to stand near one of the slatted walls of the cattle car, where he’s able to look out at the European countryside as it scrolls by. Behind Lale, men fight to get away from the buckets that have begun to overflow with feces, and this makes Lale all the more grateful that he can peer out into the fresh air and look at fields of flowers. He vows to himself that the next flower he gives to a woman, he will pick himself. 

Behind Lale, two men fight to get away from the overflowing buckets, and one of them is killed in the scuffle. “You killed him,” Lale hears someone say. “Lucky bastard,” someone else adds, but Lale disagrees with this sentiment, thinking that the man who died is unfortunate—after all, Lale knows that his own life is still too good to come to an end in such a wretched place. As the journey continues, the train makes frequent stops that sometimes last a long time. During one of these stops, a group of men in Lale’s car decides to revolt, smashing the walls in the hopes of breaking them down. When one man tells Lale to help or get out of the way, Lale calmly advises the man to reserve his energy, pointing out that if the walls could be broken down, cows would have already destroyed them. Considering this, the men dejectedly stand down.

Upon hearing that Germans were entering small towns in his home country of Slovakia and taking away Jewish people to work for them, Lale moved back in with his parents in Krompachy. He stayed there for four weeks before the Germans announced that every Jewish family was required to furnish the German government with one child of 18 years or older to become workers. Although Lale has an older brother, he volunteered to go because his brother has a wife and child. Not knowing what kind of work they would assign him, Lale dressed in his best clothing and he hoped that he’d be given a posting in which he could use his knowledge of foreign languages. He then reported to a governmental building in Krompachy, where men he once went to school with told him to go to Prague to receive his next orders.

Two days pass before the train reaches its final destination. Hearing officers screaming in German and the sound of vicious dogs barking, Lale gets off the cattle car. An officer instructs everyone to leave their belongings on the ground, but before Lale does this, he mutters a short prayer for the man who died in the fight to get away from the overflowing buckets. Afterward, he looks around at the total chaos surrounding him outside the train, watching as SS officers rip possessions from people’s hands and hit them with the butts of their rifles. One officer fires a gunshot into the air and he screams, at which point Lale gives up his suitcase. He’s sorry to part with the books his mother packed for him since he’s sure he’ll never see them again.

Lale and the others are forced toward a brick building, walking beneath an archway that reads “ARBEIT MACHT FREI”—work will set you free. Lale finds this mention of freedom absurd and he wonders what kind of work he’ll be doing. Before he can consider this further, though, Aron sidles up to Lale and he asks where they are. Lale speculates that they’ve reached “the end of the line.” Seeing Aron’s fear, Lale tells the young man that he’ll be all right as long as he follows orders. Lale then reminds himself to do the same.

An SS officer introduces himself as Commandant Rudolf Hoess, addressing Lale and his fellow prisoners and telling them that he’s in charge of this camp. “Welcome to Auschwitz,” he says, instructing everyone to focus on work and saying that there won’t be trouble if they obey orders. Going on, Hoess says that they will now be “processed” and then taken to where they’ll be living, a place called Auschwitz Two-Birkenau. When he walks away, the prisoners are put into lines, where they wait to receive identification numbers. The numbers are then written on a piece of paper that the prisoners are instructed to hand to the tattooist, who tattoos the number onto their forearms. Beside himself, Lale watches as the number 32407 is scarred into his skin. Feeling the pain, he wonders how somebody could ever do such a thing to another human being.

Lale and the others are instructed to remove their clothes and enter a large shower. The officers also tell them to leave their clothes on the floor, saying that they’ll be there when the prisoners return. Lale does what he’s told but knows he’ll never see his suit again. As he undresses, he finds a book of matches in his pocket. After making sure there are no guards watching, he strikes the match and puts it beneath his pile of clothes on the floor. Hurrying toward the shower, he hears commotion behind him as the officers yell about the small fire he’s created. This decision to ignite his clothes, he realizes, was perhaps the last instance of free will he’ll ever be able to exercise. But as Lale gets into the shower, he suddenly regrets what he’s done, fearing that someone may have seen him.

After showering, Lale and the other prisoners return to find that their clothes have been replaced by old Russian military uniforms and combat boots. Before they’re allowed to dress, though, they’re forced to line up to get their heads shaved. Afterward, Lale tries to find the best fitting uniform and boots and he’s then pushed outside with everyone else. Walking through the rain, Lale tilts his head up and he desperately drinks the rainwater falling into his mouth. Eventually, the group reaches Birkenau, which looks similar to Auschwitz. Aron comes up to Lale, who tells him that he looks awful. “You haven’t seen yourself,” Aron says. “Consider me a mirror.” 

Lale and Aron are placed in Block 7, a building full of bunks and men who have already laid claim to the beds. Lale and Aron search for space but discover that they won’t be able to secure their own mattress, since each one accommodates between two and four men. Consequently, they settle into a bed where two prisoners are already lying, and they listen as someone calls out for food. In response, the SS officer in charge says that the prisoners will be fed in the morning, to which someone says, “We’ll all be dead from starvation by morning.” Hearing this, someone else adds, “And at peace.” Joining the conversation, yet another prisoner jokes that, because the mattresses are made of hay, they should all continue to act like cattle and eat their own beds. “Mooooooo…,” someone says, and everyone laughs in the darkness.

Late that night, Lale gets up to pee. Making his way outside, he sees a ditch intended to be used as a bathroom. Above this ditch sit three prisoners who are defecating while quietly conversing. Before getting too close, Lale pauses because he sees two SS officers approaching. Staying hidden, he watches as the officers notice the three prisoners at the latrine, draw their rifles, and shoot the unsuspecting men before carelessly walking away. Breathless, Lale steps into the shadows as the officers walk by him and he makes an oath to himself: “I will live to leave this place. I will walk out a free man. If there is a hell, I will see these murderers burn in it.” When Lale returns, Aron asks what the shots were, but Lale claims he didn’t see. He then tells Aron to wait until morning to urinate.