by Heather Morris
Harper, 2018, 262 pages, Historical Fiction
This beautiful, illuminating tale of hope and courage is based on interviews that were conducted with Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz-Birkenau prisoner Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov. As a Jew sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp fairly early-on in the war, Lale is assigned the relatively cushy task of tattooing all of the incoming prisoners. Lale uses the leverage of this elevated position to help those he can, buying food from locals in the surrounding area and smuggling it in to other prisoners. He also meets a beautiful fellow prisoner named Gita, and learns to find hope for the future through his love for her.
Stories that take place during World War II are easy to find, but one of the appeals of this story for me was that it is largely based on an actual person’s experience of being a prisoner at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. In order to survive, every day Lale must ask himself difficult questions like: What would you do to others in order to preserve your own life? When can you afford to help people and when can you not? When you make decisions like these, are you complicit in crimes that you abhor? I wonder if the answers for some of these questions would have different answers if they happened today.
While this book asks hard questions, it’s also a book of love, hope and courage. This book is a great addition to the growing list of excellent World War II fiction out there.
I listened to the audiobook since it’s narrated by one of my favorite audiobook narrators, Richard Armitage, and his reading skill does not disappoint.
MB
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