An extraordinary story well told. Lale Sokolov was a survivor of Auschwitz and the man who tattooed numbers onto arms while he was there. Having kept quiet about his past for most of his new life in Australia, for fear of being labelled a collaborator, he selected Heather Morris to tell his tale. What emerges is a moving love story amidst brutality and horror, all the more touching for being true. We follow dapper young Slovakian Lale into Auschwitz, where he quickly learns that those that survive are the ones with non-manual jobs. Lale wants to survive. Finding himself selected to assist the tattooist, which gets him a room and food, Lale attempts to give food away. One day he tattoos the arm of a girl he just can’t get out of his mind. They meet in secret, bringing small interludes of joy to an otherwise grim life. Bittersweet, with clear-eyed descriptions of life in this terrible place, it is a story worth hearing and clearly took courage to tell, at last.
