The Tattooist of Auschwitz

  “Tätowierer!” Baretski places a hand on Lale’s shoulder, breaking the spell.

  The prisoners move away, not wanting to be near an SS officer or the prisoner to whom he is talking. The group of girls scatters, leaving her looking at Lale, he looking at her. Baretski’s eyes move from one to the other as they stand in a perfect triangle, each waiting for the other to shift. Baretski has a knowing smile. Bravely, one of her friends advances and pulls her back into the group.

  “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?”

  34902.

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

  “Where are we going?” Lale changes the subject.

  “To Auschwitz. Herr Doktor needs more patients.”

  A chill runs through Lale. He remembers the man in the white coat, his hairy hands on that beautiful girl’s face. Lale has never felt so uneasy about a doctor as he did that day.

  “But it’s Sunday.”

  Baretski laughs. “Oh, you think just because the others don’t work on Sunday, you should get it off, too? Would you like to discuss this with Herr Doktor?” Baretski’s laughter grows shrill, sending more shivers down Lale’s spine. “Please do that for me, Tätowierer. Tell Herr Doktor it is your day off. I would so enjoy it.”

  Lale knows when to shut up. He strides off, putting some distance between himself and Baretski.

  4

  AS THEY WALK TO AUSCHWITZ, BARETSKI SEEMS IN A JOVIAL mood and peppers Lale with questions. “How old are you?” “What did you do before—you know, before you were brought here?”

  For the most part, Lale answers with questions, and he discovers that Baretski likes talking about himself. He learns that Baretski is only a year younger than Lale, but that is where the similarities end. He talks about women like a teenager. Lale decides he can make this difference work for him and begins telling Baretski of his winning ways with women, how it’s all about respecting them and what they care about.

  “Have you ever given a girl flowers?” asks Lale.

  “No, why would I do that?”

  “Because they like a man who gives them flowers. Better still if you pick them yourself.”

  “Well, I’m not gonna do that. I’d get laughed at.”

  “By who?”

  “My friends.”

  “You mean other men?”

  “Well, yeah—they’d think I was a sissy.”

  “And what do you think the girl getting the flowers would think?”

  “What does it matter what she thinks?” He begins smirking and yanking at his groin. “That’s all I want from them, and that’s what they want from me. I know these things.”

  Lale walks ahead. Baretski catches up.

  “What? Did I say something wrong?”

  “Do you really want me to answer that?”

  “Yeah.”

  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 jumps back. The gunshots reverberate around them. Baretski is panting, his face red and his eyes dark.

  Lale raises his hands. “Got it. Just something to think about.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  * * *

  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 34902.”

  After dinner, Lale slips quietly over to Block 7. The kapo glares at him but says nothing.

  Lale shares his extra evening rations, only a few crusts of bread, with his friends from the block. The men talk and exchange news. As usual, the religious among them invite Lale to partake in evening prayer. He politely declines, and his refusal is politely accepted. This is the standard routine.

  * * *

  ALONE IN HIS SINGLE ROOM, LALE WAKES TO THE SIGHT OF Baretski standing over him. He didn’t knock before entering—he never has—but there is something different about this visit.

  “She’s in Block 29.” He hands Lale a pencil and some paper. “Here, write to her and I will make sure she gets it.”

  “Do you know her name?”

  Baretski’s look gives Lale his answer. What do you think?

  “I’ll come back in an hour and take it to her.”

  “Make it two.”

  Lale agonizes over the first words he will write to prisoner 34902. How to even begin? How to address her? Eventually he decides to keep it simple: “Hello, my name is Lale.” When Baretski returns, he hands him the page, only a few sentences on it. He has told her he is from Krompachy in Slovakia, his age, and the makeup of his family, who he hopes are safe. He asks her to be near the administration building next Sunday morning. He explains that he will try to be there, too, and that if he isn’t, it will be because of his work, which isn’t regulated like everyone else’s.

  Baretski takes the letter and reads it in front of Lale.

  “Is this all you have to say?”

  “Anything more, I’ll say in person.”

  Baretski sits down on Lale’s bed and leans in to boast about what he would say, what he would do if he was in Lale’s situation—that is, not knowing if he will still be alive at the end of the week. Lale thanks him for the input but says he prefers to take his chances.

  “Fine. I’ll deliver this so-called letter to her and give her pencil and paper to reply. I’ll tell her I will come for her reply tomorrow morning—give her all night to think about whether or not she likes you.”

  He smirks at Lale as he leaves the room.

  What have I done? He has placed prisoner 34902 in danger. He is protected. She is not. And still, he wants, needs, to take the risk.

  * * *

  THE NEXT DAY, LALE AND LEON WORK WELL INTO THE EVENING. Baretski patrols not far from them at all times, often exercising his authority with the lines of men, using his rifle as a baton when he doesn’t like the look of someone. His insidious smirk is never off his face. He takes clear delight in swaggering up and down the rows of men. It is only when Lale and Leon are packing up that he takes a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and hands it to Lale.

  “Oh, Tätowierer,” he says, “she doesn’t say much. I think you should choose yourself another girlfriend.”

  As Lale reaches out to take the note, Baretski playfully pulls it away. OK, if that’s the way you want to play it. He turns and walks away. Baretski chases after him and gives him the note. A curt nod of the head is the only thanks Lale is prepared to give him. Putting the note in his bag, he walks toward his evening meal, watching Leon head back to his block, knowing he will probably have missed his own.

  There is a small amount of food left by the time Lale arrives. After eating, he shoves several pieces of bread up his sleeve, cursing the fact that his Russian uniform has been replaced by a pajama-like outfit with no pockets. On entering Block 7, he receives the usual quiet chorus of greeting. He explains that he only has enough extra food for Leon and maybe
two others, promising that he will try to get more tomorrow. He cuts his stay short and hurries back to his room. He needs to read the words buried among his tools.

  He drops onto his bed and holds the note to his chest, picturing prisoner 34902 writing the words he is so eager to read. Finally, he opens it.

  “Dear Lale,” it begins. Like him, the woman has written only a few careful lines. She is also from Slovakia. She has been in Auschwitz longer than Lale, since early April. She works in one of the warehouses nicknamed “Canada,” where prisoners sort through the belongings confiscated from fellow victims. She will be in the compound on Sunday and will look for him. Lale rereads the note and turns the paper over several times. Grabbing the pencil from his bag, he scribbles in bold on the back of her letter: Your name, what is your name?

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING, BARETSKI ESCORTS LALE TO AUSCHWITZ alone. The new transport is a small one, so Leon has been given a day’s rest. Baretski begins to tease Lale about the note and how he must have lost his touch with the ladies. Lale ignores his teasing, asks him if he’s read any good books lately.

  “Books? I don’t read books,” Baretski mutters.

  “You should.”

  “Why? What good are books?”

  “You can learn a lot from them, and girls like it if you can quote lines or recite poetry.”

  “I don’t need to quote books. I’ve got this uniform; that’s all I need to get girls. They love the uniform. I have a girlfriend, you know,” Baretski boasts.

  This is news to Lale.

  “That’s nice. And she likes your uniform?”

  “Sure does. She even puts it on and marches around saluting—thinks she’s Hitler.” With a chilling laugh he mimics her, strutting away, arm raised: “Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler!”

  “Just because she likes your uniform doesn’t mean she likes you,” blurts out Lale.

  Baretski stops in his tracks.

  Lale curses himself for the careless comment. He slows his steps, pondering whether to go back and apologize. No, he’ll walk on and see what happens. Closing his eyes, he places one foot in front of the other, one step at a time, waiting, expecting to hear the shot. He hears the sound of running behind him. Then the tug of an arm on his sleeve. “Is that what you think, Tätowierer? That she just likes me because of my uniform?”

  A relieved Lale turns to face him. “How do I know what she likes? Why don’t you tell me something else about her?”

  He doesn’t want any part of this conversation, but having dodged a bullet, he feels he has no choice. It turns out that Baretski knows very little about his “girlfriend,” mostly because he’s never asked her about herself. This is too much for Lale to ignore, and before he knows it he is giving Baretski further advice on how to treat women. Inside his head, Lale is telling himself to shut up. What should he care about the monster beside him and whether or not he will ever be capable of treating a woman with respect? In truth, he hopes Baretski will not survive this place to be with any woman ever again.

  5

  SUNDAY MORNING HAS ARRIVED. LALE LEAPS FROM HIS BED and hurries outside. The sun is up. Where is everybody? Where are the birds? Why aren’t they singing?

  “It’s Sunday!” he calls to no one in particular. Spinning around, he notices rifles trained on him from the nearby guard towers.

  “Oh, shit.” He races back into his block as gunshots pierce the quiet dawn. The guard seems to have decided to scare him. Lale knows this is the one day that prisoners “sleep in,” or at least don’t leave their blocks until their hunger pains force them toward the black coffee and a single piece of stale bread. The guard sends another round into the building, for the fun of it.

  Back in his small room, Lale paces to and fro, rehearsing the first words he will say to her.

  You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen is given a run, and discarded. He feels pretty sure that with her bald head and clothes once worn by someone much bigger, she doesn’t feel beautiful. Still, he won’t completely rule it out. But perhaps the best thing would be to keep it simple—What is your name?—and see where that leads.

  Lale forces himself to stay inside until he begins to hear the sounds, so familiar to him now, of the camp waking up. First, the siren pierces the prisoners’ sleep. Then hungover SS, short on sleep and temper, bark instructions. The breakfast urns clang as they are moved to each block; the prisoners carrying them groan as they get weaker by the day and the urns get heavier by the minute.

  He wanders over to his breakfast station and joins the other men who qualify for extra rations. There is the usual nodding of heads, raising of eyes, occasional brief smiles. No words are exchanged. He eats half his bread, stuffing the remainder up his sleeve, creating a cuff to keep it from falling out. If he can, he will offer it to her. If not, it will be Leon’s.

  He watches as those not working mingle with friends from other blocks and disperse in small groups to sit and enjoy the summer sun while it lasts. Autumn is just around the corner. He starts toward the compound to begin his search, and then realizes that his bag is missing. My lifeline. He never leaves his room without it, yet this morning he has. Where is my head? He runs back to his block and reappears, head up, bag in hand—a man on a mission.

  * * *

  FOR WHAT SEEMS LIKE A LONG TIME LALE WALKS AMONG HIS fellow prisoners, chatting to those he knows from Block 7. All the while, his eyes search the groups of girls. He is talking to Leon when the tiny hairs on the back of his neck rise—the tickling sensation of being watched. He turns. There she is.

  She is chatting with three other girls. Noticing that he has seen her, she stops. Lale walks toward the girls, and her friends step back, putting a little distance between them and the stranger; they have heard about Lale. She is left standing alone.

  He comes close to the girl, drawn again to her eyes. Her friends giggle quietly in the background. She smiles. A weak, tentative smile. Lale is almost rendered speechless. But he summons the courage. He hands her the bread and letter. In it, unable to stop himself, he has told her that he can’t stop thinking about her.

  “What’s your name?” he asks. “I need to know your name.”

  Behind him someone says, “Gita.”

  Before he is able to do or say anything more, Gita’s friends rush to her and drag her away, whispering questions as they go.

  That night, Lale lies on his bed saying her name over and over. “Gita. Gita. What a beautiful name.”

  * * *

  IN BLOCK 29 IN THE WOMEN’S CAMP, GITA CURLS UP WITH HER friends Dana and Ivana. A beam from a floodlight seeps through a small crack in the timber wall, and Gita strains to read Lale’s letter.

  “How many times are you going to read it?” Dana asks.

  “Oh, I don’t know, until I know every word by heart,” Gita replies.

  “When will that be?”

  “About two hours ago,” Gita giggles. Dana hugs her friend tightly.

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING, GITA AND DANA ARE THE LAST TO LEAVE their block. They exit with their arms linked, talking, oblivious to their surroundings. 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?”

  * * *

  SUNDAY. PRISONERS MEANDER AROUND THE COMPOUND, ALONE and in small groups. Some sit up against the buildings, too tired and weak to move. A handful of SS roam about
, chatting and smoking, ignoring the prisoners. Gita and her friends walk around, keeping their faces blank. All but Gita talk quietly. She is looking around her.

  Lale watches Gita and her friends, smiling at Gita’s worried look. Whenever her eyes almost land on him, he ducks behind other prisoners. He moves slowly toward her. Dana sees him first and is about to say something when Lale holds a finger to his lips. Without breaking step, he reaches out, takes Gita by the hand, and continues walking. Her friends giggle and grasp each other as Lale silently steers Gita around the back of the administration building, checking to make sure the guard in the nearby tower is relaxed and not looking in their direction.

  He slides his back down the wall of the building, pulling Gita with him. From there, they can see the forest beyond the perimeter fence. Gita peers down at the ground while Lale looks intently at her.

  “Hello . . .” he says tentatively.

  “Hello,” she replies.

  “I hope I haven’t frightened you.”

  “Are we safe?” She darts a look at the nearby guard tower.

  “Probably not, but I can’t go on just seeing you. I need to be with you and talk to you, like people should.”

  “But we’re not safe—”

  “It’s never going to be safe. Talk to me. I want to hear your voice. I want to know all about you. All I know is your name. Gita. It’s beautiful.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  Lale struggles for the right question. He goes for something ordinary. “How about . . . how’s your day been?”

  Now she lifts her head and looks him straight in the eye. “Oh, you know how it is. Got up, had a big breakfast, kissed Mama and Papa goodbye before catching the bus to work. Work was—”

  “OK, OK, I’m sorry, dumb question.”

  They sit side by side but look away from each other. Lale listens to Gita’s breathing. She taps a thumb against her thigh. Finally, she says, “So how is your day going?”