Tag: concentration camps

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

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Lale Sokolav, a Jew from Slovenia, is sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp in April, 1942 as part of the Nazi’s “final solution”. The Tattooist of Auschwitz follows Lale on his harrowing journey where, despite the fear and danger he is able to survive and even find a reason to survive.

When Lale first enters Auschwitz he is subjected to the same horror of forced labor, very little food and filthy living conditions as all the prisoners, but when his captors discover that he is fluent in several languages he is given a “promotion” as “Tatowierer” – the tattooist. He is now responsible for permanently marking numbers on the arms of his fellow Jews as they enter the camp. While is is horrified and sickened by his role in their misery, Lale is determined to survive.

Because he is the Tattooist, Lale has some additional privileges – he has his own room and he is able to move around the camp without too much suspicion so long as he carries his bag of tattoo supplies with him. He uses this privilege to collect money and jewels that other prisoners have secretly kept that were found in the clothes of the people who have been murdered. He then then exchanges these for food and medicine from a local workman who comes to the camp each day, building more barracks.

One day, while Lale is tattooing the arms of young women, he falls in love. Her name is Gita and Lale is determined that they will both survive and create a life together beyond the nightmare they are now living. Despite Lale’s status as the “Tatowierer” he still faces many horrific and dangerous situations (sometimes through his own foolishness) and he is haunted by his role in German hands – is he a collaborator? Or simply doing whatever it takes to survive?

Based on a true story, this is a powerful book on many levels, one that is both horrible and thoughtful and optimistic.

If you are taking part in the Online Reading Challenge this year, this book is a good choice for our July theme of surviving the Holocaust.

Online Reading Challenge – July

- Ann Leave a comment

Hello and welcome to the July edition of the Online Reading Challenge!

This month our theme is about the Holocaust and those who survived. Living through this terrible, dark time is pretty much unimaginable to those of us that were not touched by it’s horrors. Simply reading about the Holocaust is difficult, but I think it’s important that we do read about it and never forget how terrible events can happen. We must always be vigilant so that this never happens again, a job that is neverending.

This month’s main title is We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter.

An extraordinary, propulsive novel based on the true story of a family of Polish Jews who scatter at the start of the Second World War, determined to survive, and to reunite. It is the spring of 1939, and three generations of the Kurc family are doing their best to live normal lives, even as the shadow of war grows ever closer. The talk around the family Seder table is of new babies and budding romance, not of the increasing hardships facing Jews in their hometown of Radom, Poland. But soon the horrors overtaking Europe will become inescapable and the Kurc family will be flung to the far corners of the earth, each desperately trying to chart his or her own path toward safety.

Also available as an ebook.

Alternate titles are:

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners. Imprisoned for more than two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism–but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion.

Also available as an ebook, e-audiobook and Large Print.

The Last Train to London by Meg Waite Clayton

Truus Wijsmuller, a member of the Dutch resistance, risks her life smuggling Jewish children out of Nazi Germany to the nations that will take them. It is a mission that becomes even more dangerous after the Anschluss – Hitler’s annexation of Austria – as, across Europe, countries close their borders to the growing number of refugees desperate to escape. Tante Truus, as she is known, is determined to save as many children as she can.

Night by Eli Wiesel

Born in the town of Sighet, Transylvania, Elie Wiesel was a teenager when he and his family were taken from their home in 1944 to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and then to Buchenwald. This book is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel’s memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man.

Also available as an e-audiobook and as a book-on-cd

Look for these books and many others on display at each of our buildings.

The Room on Rue Amelie by Kristin Harmel

- Ann Leave a comment

After falling in love with and marrying a Frenchman, California girl Ruby moves to Paris despite her parents’ concerns. It’s 1938 and Europe is on the verge of war. Ruby insists on staying, even after war is declared and soon finds herself involved in the French Resistance, facing great danger and heartbreak.

The Room on Rue Amelie by Kristin Harmel takes a look at the homefront in Paris, the deprivations, the very real danger and the fear. At first, the French residents have difficulty believing that anything awful will happen to them, that the French government will protect them. The reality is that the French government flees before the invading Germans, food becomes scarce and citizens turn a blind eye to the rounding up and deportation of Jews.

Ruby, however, cannot look away; she agrees to shelter a Jewish child and begins helping the Resistance smuggle downed Allied pilots out of the country. Along with the stress and struggles of daily life, she and her husband grow apart, watches neighbors and friends fall to Nazi aggression, suffers personal loss and falls in love.

As expected, I enjoyed the setting and the time period and found the glimpse of the French home front to be very interesting. However, I never really connected with the heroine – she seemed very detached and almost untouched by the events surrounding her. I think that descriptions of conditions and hardships were minimized which made everything somewhat distant. But maybe that’s just my interpretation. Did any of you read this book? And if so, what did you think?

If you’re looking for other books about the homefront in France during World War II, I’d highly recommend All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (one of my very favorite books), The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah or Sarah’s Key by Tatiana Rosnay.

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

- Ann 1 Comment

s KeyOn July 16, 1942 thousands of Jewish families were rounded up in Paris and held under brutal conditions at the Vel’ d’Hiv’ train station before being shipped to Auschwitz and almost certain death. Although the orders were issued by the Nazi’s, they were carried out by the French police; most of the Jews were French citizens and almost no one came to their defense. Property and homes left behind by the Jews were quickly taken over by Parisians and the incident buried. While France has recently made an effort to acknowledge and apologize for this dark chapter in their history, and public memorials have been erected, it remains a story that is little known and even deliberately hidden.

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana  de Rosnay brings this horrific story to life. Alternating chapters follow 10-year-old Sarah Starzynki and her family when they are brutally taken from their home in 1942 and present-day journalist Julia Jarmond who is writing a story about the little known roundup. The secret that Sarah carries with her – that, at his insistence, she has locked her little brother into a secret hiding place, believing she will return in a few hours – as well as the suffering she and her family endure shadows her life. Julia, an American living in Paris, discovers that her in-laws have a connection to Sarah, a family secret that they have tried to deny. Julia’s determination to find answers and to trace Sarah threaten her marriage and forever alter her view of her beloved adopted home.

This book is a real page turner – both stories are dramatic, full of twists and revealing of human character both at its worst and its best. There are interesting insights into how the people of Occupied France reacted to the persecution of the Jews, and how many modern French continue to dismiss or ignore their past.  At one point someone asks Julia why she, an American born long after the war and with no connection to the tragedy, is so determined to find Sarah. Julia replies that she wants to apologize, “Sorry for not knowing. Sorry for being 45 years old and not knowing.” Reading Sarah’s Key can help all of us correct this error.