The Tattooist of Auschwitz

In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Because he speaks several languages, he is put to work as the Tätowierer, the tattooist tasked with permanently marking the numbers onto the arms of his fellow prisoners. It is a position that grants him a sliver of privilege and a measure of relative safety, which he uses at great personal risk to smuggle food and small comforts to those around him.

One day he tattoos the arm of a frightened young woman named Gita, and in the midst of unimaginable horror he resolves to survive the camp and one day marry her. Over more than two years of captivity, Lale witnesses appalling cruelty and clings to small acts of courage, kindness, and love as the means to stay human.

Based on the real testimony of Lale Sokolov and first in Heather Morris's trilogy, this is a story of endurance and hope drawn from one of history's darkest chapters. Readers should know it is a novelized account inspired by, but not a literal record of, actual events.