‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’ TV series seeks to send a message of hope

LONDON — The upcoming TV show “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” is based on the best-selling novel of the same name and inspired by a real-life love story set in the concentration camp.

The mini-series tells the story of Slovakian Jew Lali Sokolov who was taken to Auschwitz in 1942 and made one of the camp’s tattooists who inked identification numbers on to the prisoners’ arms. A few months after his arrival, Lali met and fell in love with Gita, a young Slovakian woman, while tattooing her arm.

The series tells the story of their love and survival, as recounted by an elderly and recently widowed Lali, played by Harvey Keitel, to thenaspiring author Heather Morris (Melanie Lynskey).

Morris met with Lali several times a week over some three years, during which he gradually opened up about his past and his trauma. Morris promised to one day share his story with the world.

“He was in hospital, he had had a massive stroke, I knew he was not going to see the sun come up the next day, and I sat with him and then I kissed him good-bye and said ‘I will never, ever stop trying to tell your story. That is my vow to you’. And that was on the 31st of October 2006,” Morris said at the series’ premiere in London on Tuesday.

German actor Jonah Nay, who plays Nazi SS officer Stefan Baretzki, said the production came with “emotional weight”.

“I really hope that with the series we found the right tone for what Lali Sokolov wanted Heather Morris to express with the story, to tell the world to get out there to spread a little hope,” he said.

The six-part series is directed by Israeli filmmaker Tali Shalom-Ezer and its score composed by two-time Oscar-winner Hans Zimmer and Kara Talve.

More than 1.1 million people, most of them Jews, perished at the Nazi death camp in southern Poland in gas chambers or from starvation, cold or disease.