Do you like historical fiction?

I go through reading phases, but historical fiction is one of my favourite genres. Today I’m going to review one of my favourite historical fiction novels: The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris (buy here!). Its’s a romance, based on a true story.

I picked this book up basically by accident – I liked the cover when I saw it in Waterstones! I then read it all in one go, sat in a motorbike-themed café.
I literally couldn’t put it down.

Synopsis

In short, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is a love story set during WWII. It follows the story of Lale, the Auschwtiz-Birkenau tattooist or Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist). Lale is a privileged prisoner, he has access to extra rations and freedoms, but he is also incredibly generous, sharing those privileges with his fellow prisoners as much as possible. Lale meets Gita, tattooing her as she arrives in camp, and so begins their love story. Their love story is about perseverance, selflessness and hope in the face of evil.

Background

As I mentioned, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is based on a true story. Heather Morris, the author, conducted a series of interviews with the real-life Lali Solokov.

Because of this, you’d expect this book to be extremely accurate historically, right?

Unfortunately not.

I read an article from the Guardian (linked here), and was pretty shocked to learn just how factually inaccurate the novel was, despite the publisher’s claim that “every reasonable attempt to verify the facts against available documentation has been made” is not necessarily true. The Auschwitz Memorial Research Centre published a 7 page paper outlining all the errors (linked here). The length of the paper itself indicates just how many errors there are, which is really quite shocking. You wonder how hard Heather Morris and her publisher really tried to verify the facts she was writing.

Why does this matter?

It’s important for a historical fiction book to be mostly historically accurate, because books affect people’s understanding of a time period or event. This can be extremely harmful, especially if the facts are completely wrong, or the book is about a particularly atrocious historical event (like the Holocaust). The reader is basically being lied to, and if the book becomes extremely popular, a whole group of people are misinformed.

Should the historical inaccuracies in The Tattooist of Auschwitz put you off it?

I would say no. Don’t feel like you can’t read this book because some specific facts are wrong. The overall message and story of this book is correct. It is based on a single personal experience of a man from Auschwitz, and that makes it extremely valuable to any reader, because it will teach you so much about what Auschwitz was like.

Favourite or forgettable?

Favourite! The Tattooist of Auschwitz is excellent: it touched my heart. It reminded me of the horrors of Auschwitz, and was extremely poignant, but somehow managed to focus on love rather than hate. It’s so emotional, and is an excellent binge read (I think because it focusses mostly on plot rather than description).

This book is one of my favourite historical fiction books ever.

I completely recommend it to you!

If you loved this, read this:

These books are also about the Holocaust, and are written in a similar style.

• The Choice: Embrace the Possible by Edith Eva Eger (buy here!)
  
• Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris [The Sequel to The Tattooist of Auschwitz] (buy here!)
  
• The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe (buy here!)

Have you read The Tattooist of Auschwitz? What did you think? Let me know in the comments!

My YouTube review

Note the amazon purchase links in this post are affiliate links. This means that, should you purchase the books through my link, I earn a very small commission! You don’t pay any extra!