Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Tattooist of Auschwitz, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Survival and Morality
Faith, Love, and Optimism
Unity, Sacrifice, and Empathy
Knowledge, Uncertainty, and Power
Summary
Analysis
Lale spends four days walking and hitching rides to Krompachy, where he goes straight to his old home. As he stands before the house (which has fallen into a sad state), his elderly neighbor comes outside and she’s astonished to see him. She hurries Lale inside because his sister, Goldie, is still living there. Ecstatic, Lale rushes to the door, but Goldie faints upon answering it. When she comes to, she and Lale sit together in the house and she tells him that their parents were taken by the Nazis several days after he himself left and that nobody knows if they’re still alive. Furthermore, their older brother joined the resistance fighters and he was killed in battle, leaving behind his wife and children, who were also taken by the Nazis. Goldie, for her part, married a Russian who is out of town on business.
The news about Lale’s other family members is certainly depressing, but the mere fact that Goldie is still alive is significant, since it at least means that there is still some positivity in Lale’s life. Still, though, the specifics about what happened to the rest of his family are uncertain and they’ll likely remain that way for a long time—possibly even forever. This, it seems, is one of the most unsettling aspects of the Holocaust: no matter how many people survived, so many others disappeared and will never be heard from again.
Themes
Lale refuses to tell Goldie about what happened to him, except that he’s been in a work camp in Poland. However, he does tell her about Gita, explaining how much he loves her. Hearing this, Goldie tells Lale that he has to go find her even though he doesn’t know where she’s from. Agreeing with Goldie, Lale’s elderly neighbor says that he should return to Bratislava because survivors have been flooding into the city. Heeding this advice, Lale goes out, buys a horse and a cart from an elderly man, and sets off on a three-day journey to Bratislava. Once he reaches the city, he spends every day at the train station, sleeping in his cart at night for two full weeks.
Lale has managed to make it home from the concentration camps safely, but his journey clearly won’t end until he knows what has become of Gita—and, more importantly, until he reunites with her. This is why Lale wastes no time leaving home once more to find her, fully dedicating himself to continuing their relationship, which is perhaps the sole factor that’s kept him going for the past three years.
Themes
While looking for Gita on the platform one day, Lale speaks to the stationmaster, who tells him that he should register Gita’s name with the Red Cross since the organization has been gathering the names of missing people. Accordingly, Lale takes his horse and cart and he heads toward the Red Cross office. On his way, a woman steps into his path on the street: it’s Gita. Slowing the cart to a stop, Lale gets down but he can’t bring himself to walk toward her, so Gita approaches and she says hello. Lale falls to his knees. Stooping to the ground, Gita says, “In case you didn’t hear me when we left Birkenau, I love you.” In response, Lale asks if she’ll marry him, and she says yes. Lale embraces Gita, kissing her passionately before standing and walking away with her through the busy street.
Love sustained both Lale and Gita throughout the Holocaust, and this touching moment proves that love has triumphed. Without each other, it’s quite likely that Lale and Gita might have given up hope long before reaching this point, especially since they had to go through so many trials and tribulations to not only survive Auschwitz-Birkenau, but also to reunite with each other. In this way, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is first and foremost a book about the hope and resilience that love can inspire.
Themes
