The Tattooist of Auschwitz

  Mendel hurries off and manages to get in a line. He wraps his arms around himself to ward off the cold, and to protect the snake he now bears. Lale watches as the guard finds his name and ushers him on board. As the engine starts up and the truck moves off, Lale slinks back to his room.

  17

  THE MONTHS THAT FOLLOW ARE PARTICULARLY HARSH. PRISONERS die in all manner of ways. Many are taken by disease, malnutrition, and exposure to the cold. A few make it to an electrified fence, killing themselves. Others are shot by a tower guard before they can. The gas chambers and crematoria are also working overtime, and Lale and Leon’s tattooing stations teem with people as tens of thousands are transported to Auschwitz and Birkenau.

  Lale and Gita see each other on Sundays when possible. On those days they mingle among other bodies, sneaking touches. Occasionally they can steal time together alone in Gita’s block. This keeps them committed to staying alive and, in Lale’s case, planning a shared future. Gita’s kapo is getting fat from the food Lale brings her. On occasion, when Lale is prevented from seeing Gita for an extended period, she asks Gita outright, “When’s your boyfriend coming next?”

  On one Sunday, Gita finally, after repeated requests, tells Lale what is going on with Cilka. “Cilka is the plaything of Schwarzhuber.”

  “Oh, god. For how long has it been going on?”

  “I don’t know exactly. A year, maybe more.”

  “He’s nothing more than a drunken, sadistic bastard,” Lale says, clenching his fists. “I can only imagine how he treats her.”

  “Don’t say that! I don’t want to think about it.”

  “What does she tell you about their time together?”

  “Nothing. We don’t ask. I don’t know how to help her.”

  “He’ll kill her himself if she rejects him in any way. I suspect Cilka’s already worked that out, otherwise she would have been dead long ago. Getting pregnant is the biggest worry.”

  “It’s all right, no one is going to get pregnant. You have to be, you know, having your monthly cycle for that to happen. Didn’t you know that?”

  An embarrassed Lale says, “Well, yes, I knew that. It’s just that it’s not something we’ve talked about. I guess I didn’t think.”

  “Neither you nor that sadistic bastard need to worry about Cilka or me having a baby. OK?”

  “Don’t compare me to him. Tell her I think she’s a hero and I’m proud to say I know her.”

  “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.”

  “What does that make you?”

  “I have been given the choice of participating in the destruction of our people, and I have chosen to do so in order to survive. I can only hope I am not one day judged a perpetrator or a collaborator.”

  Gita leans over and kisses him. “You are a hero to me.”

  Time has run on, and they are startled when other girls start returning to the block. They are fully clothed, and so Lale’s exit is not as embarrassing as it might otherwise have been.

  “Hello. Hi. Dana, lovely to see you. Girls. Ladies,” he says as he leaves.

  The kapo, in her normal position at the entrance to the building, shakes her head at Lale.

  “You need to be out of here when the others return. OK, Tätowierer?”

  “Sorry, won’t happen again.”

  Lale moves around the compound with half a spring in his step. He is surprised when he hears his name and looks around to see who is calling him. It is Victor. He and the other Polish workers are heading out of the camp. Victor summons him over.

  “Hi, Victor. Yuri. How are you doing?”

  “Not as good as you, by the look of it. What’s going on?”

  Lale waves his hand. “Nothing, nothing.”

  “We have supplies for you and thought we wouldn’t be able to hand them over. Do you have room in your bag?”

  “Absolutely. Sorry, I should’ve come and seen you sooner, but I, er, was busy.”

  Lale opens his bag, and Victor and Yuri fill it. There is too much to fit in.

  “Do you want me to bring the rest back tomorrow?” Victor asks.

  “No, I’ll take it now, thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow with payment.”

  There is one girl besides Cilka, among the tens of thousands in Birkenau, whom the SS have let keep her hair long. She is about Gita’s age. Lale has never spoken to her, but he has seen her from time to time. She stands out, with her flowing blond mane. Everybody else tries as best they can to hide their cropped heads beneath a scarf, often torn from their shirt. Lale had asked Baretski one day what the deal was with her. How is she permitted to keep her hair long?

  “On the day she came into the camp,” Baretski answered, “Commandant Hoess was at the selections. He saw her, thought she was quite beautiful, and said her hair was not to be touched.”

  Lale has often been astounded by the things he has seen in both camps, but for Hoess to think only one girl is beautiful, out of the hundreds of thousands who have come through, truly confounds him.

  As Lale hurries back to his room with a sausage shoved down his pants, he turns a corner and there she is, the “only” beautiful girl in the camp, staring at him. He makes it back to his room in record time.

  18

  SPRING HAS CHASED AWAY THE BITTEREST DEMONS OF WINTER. The warmer weather offers a ray of hope to everyone who has survived the elements, along with their captors’ cruel whims. Even Baretski is behaving less callously.

  “I know you can get things, Tätowierer,” he says, his voice lower than usual.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” says Lale.

  “Things. You can get them. I know you have contacts on the outside.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Look, I like you, OK? I haven’t shot you, have I?”

  “You’ve shot plenty of others.”

  “But not you. We’re like brothers, you and I. Haven’t I told you my secrets?”

  Lale chooses not to challenge the brotherhood claim. “You talk. I listen,” says Lale.

  “Sometimes you have given me advice, and I have listened. I’ve even tried writing nice things to my girlfriend.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Now you do,” says Baretski, his expression earnest. “Now, listen—there’s something I want you to try to get for me.”

  Lale is nervous that someone might overhear this conversation.

  “I told you—”

  “It’s my girlfriend’s birthday soon, and I want you to get me a pair of nylon stockings to send to her.”

  Lale looks at Baretski in disbelief.

  Baretski smiles at him. “Just get them for me, and I won’t shoot you.” He laughs.

  “I’ll see what I can do. It might take a few days.”

  “Just don’t take too long.”

  “Anything else I can do for you?” Lale asks.

  “No, you’ve got the day off. You can go and spend time with Gita.”

  Lale cringes. It is bad enough that Baretski knows that Lale spends time with her, but how he hates hearing the bastard say her name.

  Before doing what Baretski has suggested, Lale goes looking for Victor. He eventually finds Yuri, who tells him Victor is sick and not at work today. Lale says he is sorry to hear that and walks off.

  “Can I do something for you?” Yuri asks.

  Lale turns back. “I don’t know. I have a special request.”

  Yuri raises an eyebrow. “I might be able to help.”

  “Nylon stockings. You know, the things girls wear on their legs.”

  “I’m not a kid, Lale. I know what nylons are.”

  “Could you get me a pair?” Lale reveals two diamonds in his hand.

  Yu
ri takes them. “Give me two days. I think I can help you.”

  “Thanks, Yuri. Send my best to your father. I hope he’s feeling better soon.”

  * * *

  LALE IS CROSSING THE COMPOUND TO THE WOMEN’S CAMP when he hears the sound of an aircraft. He looks up as a small plane flies low over the compound and begins to circle back. So low that Lale can identify the symbol of the U.S. Air Force.

  A prisoner shouts out, “It’s the Americans! The Americans are here!”

  Everyone looks up. A few people start jumping up and down, waving their arms in the air. Lale looks over at the towers surrounding the compound and notices the guards on full alert, training their rifles down into the compound where the men and women are making a commotion. Some of them are simply waving to get the attention of the pilot; many others are pointing toward the crematoria and screaming, “Drop the bombs. Drop the bombs!” Lale considers joining in as the plane flies over a second time and circles for a third pass. Several prisoners run toward the crematoria, pointing, desperate to get their message across. “Drop the bombs. Drop the bombs!”

  On its third pass over Birkenau, the plane gains height and flies off. The prisoners continue to shout. Many drop to their knees, devastated that their cries have been ignored. Lale begins to back up against a nearby building. Just in time. Bullets rain down from the towers in the compound, hitting dozens of people too slow to move to safety.

  Faced with the trigger-happy guards, Lale decides against organizing to see Gita. Instead, he goes back to his block, where he is greeted by wailing and crying. The women cradle young boys and girls who have suffered bullet wounds.

  “They saw the plane and joined the other prisoners running around in the compound,” says one of the men.

  “What can I do to help?”

  “Take the other children inside. They don’t need to see this.”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks, Lale. I’ll send the old women in to help you. I don’t know what to do with the bodies. I can’t leave them here.”

  “The SS will be around to pick up the dead, I’m sure.” It sounds so callous, matter-of-fact. Tears burn behind Lale’s eyes. He shuffles on the spot. “I’m so sorry.”

  “What are they going to do with us?” the man says.

  “I don’t know what fate lies in store for any of us.”

  “To die here?”

  “Not if I can help it, but I don’t know.”

  Lale sets about gathering the young boys and girls to shepherd them indoors. Some cry; some are too shocked to cry. Several of the older women join him. They take the surviving children to the far end of the block and start telling them stories, but this time they don’t work. The children cannot be comforted. Most of them remain in a silent state of trauma.

  Lale goes to his room and returns with chocolate, which he and Nadya break up and offer around. Some of the children take it; others look at it as if it, too, will harm them. There is nothing more he can do. Nadya takes him by the hand, raising him to his feet.

  “Thank you. You have done all you can.” She brushes his cheek with the back of her hand. “Leave us now.”

  “I’ll go and help the men,” Lale responds in a faltering voice.

  He staggers off outside. There, he helps the men gather the small bodies into a pile for the SS to take away. He notices that they are already picking up the bodies that lie in the compound. Several mothers refuse to hand over their precious children, and it is heartbreaking to Lale to see small, lifeless forms being wrenched from their mothers’ arms.

  “Yisgadal v’yiskadash sh’mei raba—may his name be magnified and made holy . . .” Lale recites the kaddish in a whisper. He doesn’t know how or with what words the Romany honor their dead, but he feels an instinct to respond to these deaths in the way he has always known. He sits outside for a long time, looking skyward, wondering what the Americans had seen and thought. Several of the men join him in silence, a silence that is no longer quiet. A wall of grief surrounds them.

  Lale thinks about the date, April 4, 1944. When he’d seen it on his work sheets that week, “April” had jarred with him. April, what was it about April? Then he realized. In three weeks’ time, he will have been here for two years. Two years. 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.

  The twinkling of stars overhead is no longer a comfort. They merely remind him of the chasm between what life can be and what it is now. Of warm summer nights when as a boy he would sneak outside after everyone had gone to bed, to let the night breeze caress his face and lull him to sleep; of the evenings he spent with young ladies, walking hand in hand in a park, by a lake, their way lit by thousands of stars above. He always used to feel comforted by the heavenly roof of the night sky. Somewhere, my family is looking at the same stars now and wondering where I am. I hope they can get more comfort from them than I can.

  * * *

  IT WAS IN EARLY MARCH 1942 THAT LALE SAID GOODBYE TO his parents, brother, and sister in his hometown of Krompachy. He had given up his job and apartment in the city of Bratislava the previous October. He had made this decision after catching up with an old friend, a non-Jew who worked for the government. The friend had warned him that things were changing politically for all Jewish citizens and that Lale’s charm would not save him from what was coming. His friend offered him a job that he said would protect him from persecution. After meeting with his friend’s supervisor, Lale was offered a job as an assistant to the leader of the Slovak National Party, which he took. Dressed in a party uniform, which too closely resembled a military uniform, Lale spent several weeks traveling around the country, disseminating newsletters and speaking at rallies and gatherings. The party tried in particular to impress on youth the need to stand together, to challenge the government, which was utterly failing to denounce Hitler and offer protection to all Slovaks.

  Lale knew that all Jews in Slovakia had been ordered to wear the yellow Star of David on their clothing when out in public. He had refused. Not out of fear but because he saw himself as a Slovak: proud, stubborn, and even, he conceded, arrogant about his place in the world. His being Jewish was incidental and had never before interfered with what he did or who he befriended. If it came up in conversation, he acknowledged it and moved on. It was not a defining trait for him. It was a matter discussed more often in the bedroom than in a restaurant or club.

  In February 1942, he was given advance warning that the German Foreign Office had requested that the Slovak government begin transporting Jews out of the country as a source of labor. He requested leave to visit his family, which was granted, and he was told he could return to his position in the party at any time—that his job there was secure.

  He never considered himself naive. Like so many living in Europe at that time, he was worried about the rise of Hitler and the horrors the Führer was inflicting on other small nations, but he couldn’t accept that the Nazis would invade Slovakia. They didn’t need to. The government was giving them what they wanted, when they wanted it, and posed no threat. Slovakia just wanted to be left alone. At dinners and gatherings with family and friends, they sometimes discussed the reports of persecution of Jews in other countries, but they did not consider that Slovak Jews as a group were particularly at risk.

  * * *

  AND YET HERE HE IS NOW. TWO YEARS HAVE PASSED. HE LIVES in a community largely split into two—Jewish and Romany—identified by their race, not their nationality, and this is something Lale still cannot understand. Nations can threaten other nations. They have power, they have militaries. How can a race that is spread out across multiple countries be considered a
threat? For as long as he lives, be it short or long, he knows he will never comprehend this.

  19

  HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FAITH?” GITA ASKS AS SHE LEANS BACK into Lale’s chest at their place behind the administration building. She has chosen this moment to ask the question because she wants to hear his response, not see it.

  “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—”

  “I know, whenever and wherever we want.” She sighs. “Oh, Lale, if only.”

  Lale turns her around to face him.

  “I will not be defined by being a Jew,” he says. “I won’t deny it, but I am a man first, a man in love with you.”

  “And if I want to keep my faith? If it is still important to me?”

  “I have no say in that.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  They fall into an uneasy silence. He watches her, her eyes downcast.

  “I have no problem with you keeping your faith,” says Lale gently. “In fact, I will encourage your faith if it means a lot to you and keeps you by my side. When we leave here, I will encourage you to practice your faith, and when our babies come along, they can follow their mother’s faith. Does that satisfy you?”

  “Babies? I don’t know if I will be able to have children. I think I’m screwed up inside.”

  “Once we leave here and I can fatten you up a little, we will have babies, and they will be beautiful babies; they will take after their mother.”