105 pages • 3 hours read
Heather MorrisThe Tattooist of Auschwitz
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 9-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary: “March 1943”
Reporting to administration, Lale is happy to see Gita. She and Cilka have become good friends. Lale is told all tattoos today will have the letter z in front of them. He does not know what this means.
To Lale’s horror, children are among the new arrivals in Auschwitz. Baretski explains that the new arrivals are “‘the filth of Europe, even worse than you. They’re Gypsies’” (98). Thankfully for Lale and Leon, they do not have to tattoo the children.
Gita and Cilka’s work is interrupted. Cilka is then dragged off by SS soldiers. Gita is smacked and told to get back to work. Cilka is thrown into a room with a bed. Schwarzhuber, the head of Birkenau, arrives; he is described as “a man whose soul has died and whose body is waiting to catch up with it” (100). Schwarzhuber pushes Cilka over and undresses her. She is powerless against him; she “closes her eyes and gives in to the inevitable” (101). Gita is horrified. She knows nothing of her friend’s fate, only that she has been taken.
Lale now has an entire block to himself. The Nazis’ atrocity is in full swing, and “[t]hree crematoria now play their part in the planned execution of an entire people” (101).
Lale harbors some mistrust for the Romany children. He wonders if he should better secure the valuable food and riches he hides under his mattress. It is hard for him to get used to the sounds of children in the camp.
Chapter 10 Summary
The Romany people soon accept Lale as one of them. He learns that “the word Gypsy is often used derogatorily by non-Romany people” (103). He distributes news and food among his new friends and suggests “arranging some sort of schooling for the children, even if it is merely telling them stories about their home, their family, their culture,” a suggestion they follow (103).
A Romany woman, Nadya, catches his interest. He learns that she has lost her husband to typhus. Nadya reminds Lale of his mother; the two confide in each other. He wishes to protect her.
A young child brings memories of Lale’s family rushing back to Lale a few days later. He remembers how his mom said goodbye to him at the station in Slovakia and packed his suitcase with books and mementos. He saw his father cry for the first time. Lale realizes that “[h]e had been so caught up in his family’s emotions that he hadn’t registered his own devastating loss” (106).
Recovering, he goes back outside to spend time with the children and his new Romany friends. He realizes that if they were not imprisoned together, he would have never tried to get to know any Romanies. Nadya tells him that her name means “hope.”
Chapter 11 Summary: “May 1943”
New prisoners arrive continuously. Lale and Leon tattoo long lines of female prisoners. The new doctor apparently approves of Lale’s tattooing. This is Doctor Josef Mengele, and even Baretski fears him. Mengele is at Auschwitz looking for patients of a particular type.
Mengele later surprises Lale, causing him to mess up the tattoo he’s working on. He decides to leave the girl’s dried blood on his clothes as a reminder of the day he met Mengele, “[a] doctor who will cause more pain than he eases […] whose very existence threatens in ways Lale doesn’t want to contemplate” (111).
The next day, Mengele indiscriminately decides the fate of many young women. Lale cannot help but stare him down. Mengele notices and sends an SS officer to take Leon away. Lale tries in vain to apologize to Mengele.
Finding a flower on the walk back to his room, Lale is overcome with emotion. He realizes his mother and Gita may never meet. Lale’s mother was instrumental in his development as a man and shaping his attitude toward women. He picks the flower, determined to give it to Gita. However, the flower withers by morning.
Chapter 12 Summary
Baretski approaches Lale with an absurd request: he wants Lale to organize a game of soccer—prisoners vs. SS soldiers. Lale agrees, though he thinks “There are a million other things I could have said. Like, ‘Fuck off’” (116). He spends the day sorting the treasures under his mattress.
That evening, Lale has a hard time assembling a team: the prisoners are affronted by the suggestion. However, beginning with Big Joel and Little Joel, he is able to get 14 players together by the day of the match. Some have played semiprofessionally; they have a chance of winning. Lale orders them to lose, as they cannot risk incurring the wrath of the SS.
Schwarzhuber, Houstek, and Baretski attend the match, along with a large crowd of Nazis and prisoners. Schwarzhuber offers a trophy from the 1930 World Cup as a prize.
The game begins with the prisoners taking an early lead. Lale stresses to his team that they must let the SS win; they can overtake the Nazis in the second half, and they must let them win by one goal in the end. During the second half, “ash rains down on players and spectators. The core task of Birkenau has not been interrupted by sports” (120). The malnourished prisoners fall behind and eventually lose. The trophy goes to the SS.
Lale and Gita meet up behind the administration building. Gita searches for a four-leafed clover, as they are highly-valued by the superstitious SS. The two passionately kiss and explore each other’s bodies but are interrupted by a barking dog.
Returning to the women’s camp, Lale notices a great change has taken place in Cilka. He asks Gita what’s wrong, but she refuses to tell him. She calls Lale “my love” for the first time (122).
Chapters 9-12 Analysis
In this section of the novel, the experience of more victims begin to come into focus. In addition to six million Jews, nearly seven million Russians, two million Poles, and several hundred thousand Romanies were murdered by the Nazis. The Romany people, most often referred to by the racial epithet “Gypsies,” were disliked and mistrusted by most of Europe, and were consequently persecuted. Lale initially harbors a mistrust for the new, Romany occupants of his cell block, likely due to ingrained prejudices he grew up with. However, this mistrust is quickly replaced with kinship. As he builds a relationship with them, especially with Nadya, he realizes that he ordinarily would have had no contact with “Gypsies.” Out of a terrible situation, empathy is born.
The plight of women and children is also addressed in this section. Up until now, Auschwitz had been primarily a work camp, so primarily able-bodied adults were imprisoned there. However, it is important to note that much of their labor was building the gas chambers and crematoria, the infrastructure of the Holocaust. The arrival of children signals the beginning of genocide.
Cilka’s awful ordeal is symptomatic of the wide-scale sexual abuse suffered by many female victims of the Holocaust. Women that were subject to sexual violence faced additional danger: pregnant women were often executed immediately, rather than being sent to work camps. Despite claims of “racial superiority” and “purity,” many Nazis, such as Schwarzhuber, had no qualms about sexually abusing Jewish women.
