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Chapter 19
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Tattooist of Auschwitz, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Survival and Morality
Faith, Love, and Optimism
Unity, Sacrifice, and Empathy
Knowledge, Uncertainty, and Power
Summary
Analysis
The SS officers guarding Lale bring him to Houstek and they explain that Jakub got nothing out of him. This irks Houstek, who instructs the officers to take Lale to Block 31. In this new block, a group of prisoners tells Lale to rest up, emphasizing the importance of reserving his energy. The next day, Lale learns why they told him to rest: for the entire day, Lale and his new blockmates are forced to carry heavy rocks from one side of a field to another, at which point they’re forced to bring them back to their starting point. What’s more, it doesn’t take long for Lale to figure out that the SS officers shoot whomever is the last person to reach the other side with his rock. Somehow, Lale manages to narrowly avoid this fate despite his fragile state.
Lale’s situation hardly improves when he’s sent to Block 31, where the nature of his work is futile. Indeed, the only purpose of the exercise with the rocks is to systematically eliminate the prisoners. Of course, Auschwitz-Birkenau is now known as a death camp, and though the prisoners were ostensibly set to work, the concentration camps were ultimately part of the Nazi regime’s “Final Solution,” a plan to exterminate Europe’s entire Jewish population. In this way, Block 31 is a more expedited and straightforward manifestation of this goal, whereas other parts of Auschwitz-Birkenau pretend to focus on labor when, in reality, the Nazis’ overall plan is to continue carrying out large-scale genocide. For the first time since visiting the crematorium, then, Lale comes face to face with the true purpose of this wicked environment, once more witnessing the unmitigated cruelty of his oppressors.
Themes
On the way back that evening, Lale sees Baretski, who starts walking next to him. “I heard what happened to you,” Baretski says. In response, Lale asks for his help, and though Baretski seems hesitant, he agrees to do what he can. Accordingly, Lale asks him to pass a message to Gita, wanting Baretski to tell Gita that Lale is in Block 31 and that she should relay this information to Cilka. This confuses Baretski, but he agrees to do it—if, that is, he “feel[s] like it.” As he leaves, Lale emphasizes the importance that Baretski tell Gita to let Cilka know where he is. When Baretski relays this message, Gita is overjoyed to hear that Lale is still alive, though she’s deeply confounded by the fact that he wants Cilka to know where he is. Still, she passes the information to Cilka.
That Baretski seeks Lale out calls attention to the soft spot he has for the former tattooist. Of course, Baretski is a very cruel and immoral man, but it’s clear that the time he’s spent with Lale has made an impression on him. This is significant because it suggests that one of the main things keeping Baretski from embodying true empathy is his ability to isolate himself from the prisoners—in other words, he is capable of treating prisoners with cruelty because he doesn’t know them on a personal level. If he knew everyone like he knew Lale, it seems, he would have a harder time persecuting them. In turn, human connection emerges as a stepping stone toward empathy and even morality.
Themes
Later that night, Cilka is lying in bed with Schwarzhuber when she points out to him that she has never refused to do anything he wants her to do. Furthermore, she has never asked for anything from him. When he admits that this is true, she says, “Can I ask for one thing?” The following day, after Lale has barely survived the hauling of the stones, Cilka and Schwarzhuber appear in the field, and Schwarzhuber goes to the overseeing officer and he points to Lale before walking away with Cilka. The officer then approaches Lale and he tells Lale to follow him, explaining that he has been instructed to return Lale to his old block in the “Gypsy camp.”
Lale wanted Cilka to know about his location because he cleverly realized that she might be in a position to help him. This kind of creative thinking is one of the reasons why Lale is so capable of surviving otherwise hopeless circumstances. Furthermore, the fact that Cilka uses her position to help Lale emphasizes just how important friendship is in the wretched world of the concentration camps, since Cilka’s fondness of Lale (and her desire to make Gita happy) encourages her to do what she can to ensure that he stays alive. Without these connections, then, it’s clear that Lale would never have made it out of Block 31.
Themes
