Listening Lately {The Tattooist of Auschwitz & Cilka’s Journey}

I recently finished listening to The Tattooist of Auschwitz, immediately followed by Cilka’s Journey. I waffle between reading actual books and listening to audio books and looked forward to every second I got to listen to these. Both were beautifully narrated and I found myself closing my eyes in complete immersion into these stories.

I had The Tattooist of Auschwitz on my radar for a long time. It is one of the best, most memorable, most important things I’ve “read” in ages. The author, Heather Morris, sat with Lale to hear his story and his truth from his remembered experiences at Auschwitz-Birkenau. If you listen, continue through to the afterward to learn more about Heather, her time with Lale and Lale’s son Gary. When I finished, I spent days reading articles and pouring through pictures, hungry to know everything I could about Lale and Gita.

“The Tattooist of Auschwitz is an extraordinary document, a story about the extremes of human behavior existing side by side: calculated brutality alongside impulsive and selfless acts of love. I find it hard to imagine anyone who would not be drawn in, confronted and moved. I would recommend it unreservedly to anyone, whether they’d read a hundred Holocaust stories or none.”—Graeme Simsion, internationally-bestselling author of The Rosie Project

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 over two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive.

One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.

A vivid, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful re-creation of Lale Sokolov’s experiences as the man who tattooed the arms of thousands of prisoners with what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is also a testament to the endurance of love and humanity under the darkest possible conditions.

I was so deeply immersed in The Tattooist of Auschwitz that I wanted more when it ended. I promptly downloaded Cilka’s Journey. This one dives deeper into the story of Lale’s friend Cilka, a secondary “character” in The Tattooist book. The details in the book are told as remembered by fellow survivors, as Cilka had died before it was written.

Cilka is just sixteen years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in 1942, where the commandant immediately notices how beautiful she is. Forcibly separated from the other women prisoners, Cilka learns quickly that power, even unwillingly taken, equals survival.

When the war is over and the camp is liberated, freedom is not granted to Cilka: She is charged as a collaborator for sleeping with the enemy and sent to a Siberian prison camp. But did she really have a choice? And where do the lines of morality lie for Cilka, who was send to Auschwitz when she was still a child?

In Siberia, Cilka faces challenges both new and horribly familiar, including the unwanted attention of the guards. But when she meets a kind female doctor, Cilka is taken under her wing and begins to tend to the ill in the camp, struggling to care for them under brutal conditions.

Confronting death and terror daily, Cilka discovers a strength she never knew she had. And when she begins to tentatively form bonds and relationships in this harsh, new reality, Cilka finds that despite everything that has happened to her, there is room in her heart for love.

From child to woman, from woman to healer, Cilka’s journey illuminates the resilience of the human spirit―and the will we have to survive.

I am sure many of you have read both of these but, if you have not, I urge you to add them to your list. Both are unforgettable stories that will stay with you for days – and likely years – to come.

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