Tattooist of Auschwitz

IN THE Nazi concentration camps, tattoos were etched onto prisoners’ arms in a bid to erase their humanity, reducing them to mere numbers.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz, a wrenching yet ultimately uplifting six- part series adapted from Heather Morris’s non- fiction novel, counters this atrocity by presenting a stark gallery of sombre faces. These faces, among the millions lost to history, are indelibly etched into the memory of Auschwitz- Birkenau survivor Lali Sokolov ( portrayed movingly by Harvey Keitel).

In 2003, more than half a century after the Holocaust, the recently widowed Lali, still overwhelmed by anger, grief, and guilt, recounts his harrowing experiences to novice writer Morris ( Melanie Lynskey). His narrative unfolds as the most unlikely of love stories. In Auschwitz, assigned to tattoo numbers onto incoming prisoners— “It’s worse if you’re gentle,” he’s advised— the cautious Lali (a mournful Jonah HauerKing as the younger man) meets and is instantly smitten by new arrival and future wife Gita ( the luminous Anna Próchniak). She jokes about having her tattoo done in pink, and from that moment, they will go to any lengths to be together.

They embark on a dangerous, forbidden affair, stealing clandestine moments of desperate intimacy, bribing guards, and carrying on under the watchful eye of Lali’s cruel SS handler Baretsky ( the remarkable Jonas Nay from Deutschland 83). Baretsky forms a twisted brotherly bond with his captive. “We’ll get through this. I’m here for you,” he tells his appalled puppet, who recoils from his touch. The ghost of his jailer continues to haunt Lali, who often sees visions of the Nazi in his otherwise cosy Melbourne home, unsettling the sympathetic Morris with his stories.

“I don’t know if I’m capable of writing it. I’m actually terrified,” she admits when the accumulation of soul- crushing detail becomes too much. ( Viewers may well feel the same way in this unflinching dramatization.) Lali’s narrative is further complicated by his bitter awareness that, due to the status afforded by his work, he fared better than many in the camp. Yet, as a fellow inmate counsels him, “In this hell we’re in, we are only given two choices: the bad choice and the worst one.”

Lali also shares details of Gita’s struggles, including a nearly fatal infection that, if detected and untreated, could have sealed her fate. She works alongside a woman who indulges the unwanted affections of a German officer, telling her more romantically inclined acquaintance, “There is no love here, only hate and pain.”

The Tattooist of Auschwitz, despite its horrors, insists that “Love Will Survive”— a message underscored by Barbra Streisand’s soulful new song that plays over the end credits.