The Tattooist of Auschwitz Quotes

What they all share is fear. And youth. And their religion. Lale tries to keep his mind off theorizing about what might lie ahead. He has been told he is being taken to work for the Germans, and that is what he is planning to do. He thinks of his family back home. Safe. He has made the sacrifice, has no regrets. He would make it again and again to keep his beloved family at home, together.

Lale clings to his suitcase, hoping that with the money and clothes he has, he might be able to buy himself out from wherever they are headed, or at the very least buy himself into a safe job. Maybe there’ll be work where I can use my languages.

“We’ll all be dead from starvation by morning,” says someone in the back of the block.

“And at peace,” a hollow voice adds.

“These mattresses have hay in them,” someone else says. “Maybe we should continue to act like cattle and eat that.”

Snatches of quiet laughter. No response from the officer.

And then, from deep in the dormitory, a hesitant “Mooooooo…”

Laughter. Quiet, but real. The officer, present but invisible, doesn’t interrupt, and eventually the men fall asleep, stomachs rumbling.

As they disappear into the darkness, Lale makes a vow 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. He thinks of his family back in Krompachy and hopes that his presence here is at least saving them from a similar fate.

Whenever possible, he listens to the talk and gossip of the SS, who don’t know he understands them. They give him ammunition of the only sort available to him—knowledge, to be stored up for later.

“You want me to tattoo other men?”

“Someone has to do it.”

“I don’t think I could do that. Scar someone, hurt someone—it does hurt, you know.”

Pepan pulls back his sleeve to reveal his own number. “It hurts like hell. If you don’t take the job, someone will who has less soul than you do, and he will hurt these people more.”

“Aron could have told him you were ill, but he feared the kapo would add you to the death cart again if he knew, so he said you were already gone.”

“And the kapo discovered the truth?”

“No,” yawns the man, exhausted from work. “But he was so pissed off, he took Aron anyway.”

Lale struggles to contain his tears.

The second bunkmate rolls onto his elbow. “You put big ideas into his head. He wanted to save ‘the one.’”

“To save one is to save the world,” Lale completes the phrase.

Should I be fearful, now that I am privileged? Why do I feel sad about leaving my old position in the camp, even though it offered me no protection? He wanders into the shadows of the half-finished buildings. He is alone.

That night, Lale sleeps stretched out for the first time in months. No one to kick, no one to push him. in the luxury of his own bed, he feels like a king. And just like a king, he must now be wary of people’s motives for befriending him or taking him into their confidence. Are they jealous? Do they want my job? Do I run the risk of being wrongfully accused of something? He has seen the consequences of greed and mistrust here. […] He is sure that as he left the block and walked past the bunks of beaten men, he heard someone mutter the word “collaborator.”

“Very nice,” Baretski says as he and Lale walk away. Lale ignores him and fights to control the hatred he feels.

“Would you like to meet her?” Again, Lale refuses to respond.

“Write to her, tell her you like her.”

How stupid does he think I am?

“I’ll get you paper and a pencil and bring her your letter. What do you say? Do you know her name?”

4562.

Lale walks on. He knows that the penalty for a prisoner caught with a pen or paper is death.

Lale turns to him. “Do you have a sister?”

“Yeah,” says Baretski, “two.”

“Is how you treat women the way you want other men to treat your sisters?”

“Anyone does that to my kid sister and I’ll kill them.” Baretski pulls his pistol from its holster and fires several shots into the air. “I’ll kill them.”

Lale finds out that Baretski isn’t German but was born in Romania, in a small town near the border of Slovakia, only a few hundred miles from Lale’s hometown of Krompachy. He ran away from home to Berlin and joined the Hitler Youth and then the SS. He hates his father, who used to beat him and his brothers and sisters viciously. He is worried about his sisters, one younger, one older, who still live at home.

Later that night as they walk back to Birkenau, Lale says quietly, “I’ll take your offer of paper and pencil, if you don’t mind. Her number is 4562.”

Without warning, the SS officer outside their block hits Gita in the back with his rifle. Both girls crash to the ground. Gita cries out in pain. He indicates with his rifle for them to get up. They stand, their eyes downcast.

He looks at them with disgust and snarls, “Wipe the smile from your face.” He takes his pistol from its holster and pushes it hard against Gita’s temple. He gives the instruction to another officer: “No food for them today.”

As he walks away, their kapo advances and slaps them both quickly across the face. “Don’t forget where you are.” She walks away, and Gita rests her head on Dana’s shoulder.

“I told you Lale’s going to talk to me next Sunday, didn’t I?”

“I’m just a number. You should know that. You gave it to me.”

“Yes, but that’s just in here. Who are you outside of here?”

“Outside doesn’t exist anymore. There’s only here.”

[…]

“I don’t want to upset you, but will you promise me one thing?”

“What?”

“That before we leave here, you will tell me who you are and where you come from.”

She looks him in the eye. “Yes, I promise.”

“I’m happy with that for now. […].”

Lale squeezes Dana’s hand. “Thank you. Try to get some food into her. I’ll have medicine tomorrow.”

He departs, his mind a whirlpool. I barely know Gita, yet how can I live if she does not?

That night, sleep evades him.

The next morning, Victor places medicine, along with food, into Lale’s bag.

That afternoon, he is able to get it to Dana.

Around her she can feel the recognition of those witnessing her moment of grief. They look on in silence, each going into their own dark place of despair, not knowing what has become of their own families. Slowly, the two groups of women—the longtimers and the newcomers—join together.

“But we have no future.”

Lale holds her firmly around her waist, forces her to meet his gaze.

“Yes, we do. There will be a tomorrow for us. On the night I arrived here, I made a vow to myself that I would survive this hell. We will survive and make a life where we are free to kiss when we want to, make love when we want to.”

“I’m sorry that I have my escape, my Lale. You know I wish with all my heart the same for you two.”

“We are very happy that you have him,” says Ivana.

“It is enough that one of us has a little happiness. We share in it, and you let us—that’s enough for us,” says Dana.

Their lovemaking is passionate, desperate. It is a need so long in the making that it cannot be denied. Two people desperate for the love and intimacy they fear they will otherwise never experience. It seals their commitment to each other, and Lale knows at this moment that he can love no other. It strengthens his resolve to go on another day, and another day, for a thousand days, for however long it takes for them to live by his words to Gita: “To be free to make love wherever, whenever we want to.”

“What do you mean, hero? She’s not a hero,” Gita says with some annoyance. “She just wants to live.”

“And that makes her a hero. You’re a hero, too, my darling. That the two of you have chosen to survive is a type of resistance to these Nazi bastards. Choosing to live is an act of defiance, a form of heroism.”

How has he done it? How is he still breathing, when so many aren’t? He thinks back to the vow he made at the beginning. To survive and to see those responsible pay. Maybe, just maybe, those in the plane had understood what was going on, and rescue was on the way. It would be too late for those who died today, but maybe their deaths would not be entirely in vain. Hold that thought. Use it to get out of bed tomorrow morning, and the next morning, and the next.

“Have you lost your faith?” Gita asks as she leans back into Lale’s chest […].

“Why do you ask?” he says, stroking the back of her head.

“Because I think you have,” she says, “and that saddens me.”

“Then clearly you haven’t lost yours?”

“I asked first.”

“Yes, I think I have,” Lale answers.

“When?”

“The first night I arrived here. I told you what happened, what I saw. How any merciful god could let that happen, I don’t know. And nothing has happened since that night to change my mind. Quite the opposite.”

“You have to believe in something.”

“I do. I believe in you and me, and getting out of here, and making a life together where we can—” […]

“The thing is,” Jakub says, “I can’t let you give me any names.”

Lale stares, confused.

“You were kind to me and I will make the beating look worse than it is, but I will kill you before I let you tell me a name. I want as little innocent blood on my hands as possible,” Jakub explains.

“Oh, Jakub. I never imagined this would be the work they found for you. I’m so sorry.”

“If I must kill one Jew to save ten others, then I will.”

The men in Lale’s block also tell him of rumors about a general uprising, which they wanted to join but didn’t believe it was meant to happen on this day. They have heard that the Russians are advancing, and the uprising was planned to coincide with their arrival, to assist them in liberating the camp. Lale admonishes himself for not having made friends with his block companions sooner. Not having this knowledge nearly got Gita killed.

He starts to talk occasionally to one of them. The guard is impressed that Lale speaks fluent German. He has heard about Auschwitz and Birkenau but has not been there, and wants to hear about it. Lale paints a picture removed from reality. Nothing can be gained by telling this German the true nature of the treatment of prisoners there. He tells him what he did there and how he much preferred to work than to sit around. A few days later, the guard asks him if he’d like to move to a subcamp of Mauthausen, at Saurer-Werke in Vienna. Thinking it cannot be any worse than here, and with assurances from the guard that conditions are slightly better and the commandant is too old to care, Lale accepts the offer. The guard points out that this camp does not take Jews, so he should keep quiet about his religion.

He feels profound grief for his scattered family. At the same time, he longs for Gita, and this gives him the sense of purpose he needs to carry on. He must find her. He has promised.