In The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Heather Morris underlines the importance of unity in times of hardship. As a prisoner at Auschwitz, Lale fully depends upon his fellow prisoners, some of whom save his life several times. What’s more, the few uplifting moments he has in the camps come not from surviving as an individual, but from the connections he develops with other prisoners. However, he also fears division, recognizing that his privileged position as the camp’s tattooist threatens to pull him away from the other prisoners. With this in mind, Lale acknowledges that the favoritism the guards show him actually puts him at risk among the camp’s other inhabitants, since people might resent him for receiving special treatment. The way he ensures that this doesn’t happen is by using his position to do more than simply improve his own life, ultimately going out of his way to help whomever he can. In doing so, he not only avoids resentment but he finds that empathy has a way of circling back and perpetuating itself. This becomes clear when Jakub—a random man Lale once went out of his way to help on Jakub’s first night in the concentration camp—ends up saving Lale’s life years later, when the Nazis catch Lale smuggling jewels and money into the camp. Accordingly, Morris illustrates that empathy, compassion, and self-sacrifice often lead to meaningful forms of unity, connection, and communal support.
Lale learns the value of standing together with his fellow prisoners early on in his stay at Auschwitz. In his first weeks, he develops a friendship with his bunkmate, Aron, whom Lale helps stay optimistic and positive. Then, when Lale becomes gravely ill, Aron does everything he can to take care of him and make sure that the Nazis don’t learn about his feeble health, since they would surely kill him. In the end, caring for Lale costs Aron his life because a kapo—a prisoner who acts as a supervisor for the SS—responds angrily to Aron’s attempt to help Lale and the kapo kills Aron simply because the kapo wants to inflict suffering on somebody. When Lale regains consciousness after his illness and he asks the other prisoners what happened, they tell him that Aron was responsible for Lale’s survival, explaining that they were inspired by Aron’s efforts to save Lale and they therefore continued to help Lale in the aftermath of Aron’s death. In keeping with this, they tell him that Aron wanted to “save ‘the one,’” a sentiment Lale recognizes from the Talmud, an important religious text of Rabbinic Judaism. From this point on, Lale uses this perspective as a way of navigating life in Auschwitz, frequently repeating, “Save the one, save the world.” In fact, this viewpoint factors into the way he approaches his job as the tattooist, encouraging him to use the privileges this position affords him to help others when he can. Consequently, readers see that Aron’s empathy and willingness to put himself in danger to save Lale ends up influencing Lale and it therefore has a large impact on many people’s lives in the camp. This suggests that such selflessness leads to a chain effect of kindness.
Before Lale starts using his position as the tattooist to help others, though, he worries that the job will put him in danger. Although he enjoys the fact that his job earns him extra rations, a private room, and a sense of protection from the otherwise merciless guards, he fears that these privileges will also make him less safe, since it’s possible that some prisoners will conspire against him to get his job. This, it seems, is the kind of divisive attitude that the Nazis hope will take root in Auschwitz—after all, why else would they break the prisoners up into different factions, giving some people power over others? By doing this, they institute a crippling sense of hierarchy that threatens to disrupt the unity and camaraderie which people facing such harrowing circumstances need in order to emotionally survive. To Lale’s credit, though, he doesn’t succumb to the individualistic thinking that Auschwitz’s power structure produces. This is perhaps because he already knows that the only reason he’s alive is because Aron and a small group of strangers risked their own lives to help him, thereby demonstrating the communal strength to which unity and compassion can lead. Therefore, he chooses to do whatever he can to help others, sneaking his extra rations to hungry prisoners, instituting a forbidden bartering system, and generally sacrificing his safety for the good of his fellow prisoners.
Of course, Morris’s primary argument in The Tattooist of Auschwitz is not that people should practice empathy because it benefits them, but because communal support and compassion lead to a better world at large. This is what the Talmudic notion that “to save one is to save the world” suggests, ultimately asserting that isolated acts of empathy can have effects that extend beyond isolated circumstances. While tattooing incoming prisoners one day, Lale meets a man named Jakub. As Lale tattoos his arm, Jakub whispers that he’s hungry, and though Lale knows it’s a risk, he tells Jakub to hide near him until the end of the day, at which point he sneaks Jakub back to his room and gives him extra rations. Lale does this because he knows Jakub will starve to death if he has to wait to eat until the following day. Needless to say, Lale doesn’t help Jakub for any tangible benefit to himself. And yet, he does end up benefitting from showing Jakub kindness, since Jakub—who goes on to become the camp’s torturer—spares Lale when the Nazis order Jakub to torture him. In turn, it becomes clear that acts of empathy perpetuate themselves and that treating others with kindness and compassion is the best way of standing in unity against malicious evils—evils against which it would be impossible for individuals to survive on their own.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Unity, Sacrifice, and Empathy ThemeTracker
Unity, Sacrifice, and Empathy Quotes in The Tattooist of Auschwitz
What they all share is fear. And youth. And their religion. Lale tries to keep his mind off theorizing about what might lie ahead. He has been told he is being taken to work for the Germans, and that is what he is planning to do. He thinks of his family back home. Safe. He has made the sacrifice, has no regrets. He would make it again and again to keep his beloved family at home, together.
“We’ll all be dead from starvation by morning,” says someone in the back of the block.
“And at peace,” a hollow voice adds.
“These mattresses have hay in them,” someone else says. “Maybe we should continue to act like cattle and eat that.”
Snatches of quiet laughter. No response from the officer.
And then, from deep in the dormitory, a hesitant “Mooooooo…”
Laughter. Quiet, but real. The officer, present but invisible, doesn’t interrupt, and eventually the men fall asleep, stomachs rumbling.
As they disappear into the darkness, Lale makes a vow to himself: I will live to leave this place. I will walk out a free man. If there is a hell, I will see these murderers burn in it. He thinks of his family back in Krompachy and hopes that his presence here is at least saving them from a similar fate.
“You want me to tattoo other men?”
“Someone has to do it.”
“I don’t think I could do that. Scar someone, hurt someone—it does hurt, you know.”
Pepan pulls back his sleeve to reveal his own number. “It hurts like hell. If you don’t take the job, someone will who has less soul than you do, and he will hurt these people more.”
“Aron could have told him you were ill, but he feared the kapo would add you to the death cart again if he knew, so he said you were already gone.”
“And the kapo discovered the truth?”
“No,” yawns the man, exhausted from work. “But he was so pissed off, he took Aron anyway.”
Lale struggles to contain his tears.
The second bunkmate rolls onto his elbow. “You put big ideas into his head. He wanted to save ‘the one.’”
“To save one is to save the world,” Lale completes the phrase.
Should I be fearful, now that I am privileged? Why do I feel sad about leaving my old position in the camp, even though it offered me no protection? He wanders into the shadows of the half-finished buildings. He is alone.
That night, Lale sleeps stretched out for the first time in months. No one to kick, no one to push him. in the luxury of his own bed, he feels like a king. And just like a king, he must now be wary of people’s motives for befriending him or taking him into their confidence. Are they jealous? Do they want my job? Do I run the risk of being wrongfully accused of something? He has seen the consequences of greed and mistrust here. […] He is sure that as he left the block and walked past the bunks of beaten men, he heard someone mutter the word “collaborator.”
Lale turns to him. “Do you have a sister?”
“Yeah,” says Baretski, “two.”
“Is how you treat women the way you want other men to treat your sisters?”
“Anyone does that to my kid sister and I’ll kill them.” Baretski pulls his pistol from its holster and fires several shots into the air. “I’ll kill them.”
Lale finds out that Baretski isn’t German but was born in Romania, in a small town near the border of Slovakia, only a few hundred miles from Lale’s hometown of Krompachy. He ran away from home to Berlin and joined the Hitler Youth and then the SS. He hates his father, who used to beat him and his brothers and sisters viciously. He is worried about his sisters, one younger, one older, who still live at home.
Later that night as they walk back to Birkenau, Lale says quietly, “I’ll take your offer of paper and pencil, if you don’t mind. Her number is 4562.”
Without warning, the SS officer outside their block hits Gita in the back with his rifle. Both girls crash to the ground. Gita cries out in pain. He indicates with his rifle for them to get up. They stand, their eyes downcast.
He looks at them with disgust and snarls, “Wipe the smile from your face.” He takes his pistol from its holster and pushes it hard against Gita’s temple. He gives the instruction to another officer: “No food for them today.”
As he walks away, their kapo advances and slaps them both quickly across the face. “Don’t forget where you are.” She walks away, and Gita rests her head on Dana’s shoulder.
“I told you Lale’s going to talk to me next Sunday, didn’t I?”
Around her she can feel the recognition of those witnessing her moment of grief. They look on in silence, each going into their own dark place of despair, not knowing what has become of their own families. Slowly, the two groups of women—the longtimers and the newcomers—join together.
“I’m sorry that I have my escape, my Lale. You know I wish with all my heart the same for you two.”
“We are very happy that you have him,” says Ivana.
“It is enough that one of us has a little happiness. We share in it, and you let us—that’s enough for us,” says Dana.
“The thing is,” Jakub says, “I can’t let you give me any names.”
Lale stares, confused.
“You were kind to me and I will make the beating look worse than it is, but I will kill you before I let you tell me a name. I want as little innocent blood on my hands as possible,” Jakub explains.
“Oh, Jakub. I never imagined this would be the work they found for you. I’m so sorry.”
“If I must kill one Jew to save ten others, then I will.”
He starts to talk occasionally to one of them. The guard is impressed that Lale speaks fluent German. He has heard about Auschwitz and Birkenau but has not been there, and wants to hear about it. Lale paints a picture removed from reality. Nothing can be gained by telling this German the true nature of the treatment of prisoners there. He tells him what he did there and how he much preferred to work than to sit around. A few days later, the guard asks him if he’d like to move to a subcamp of Mauthausen, at Saurer-Werke in Vienna. Thinking it cannot be any worse than here, and with assurances from the guard that conditions are slightly better and the commandant is too old to care, Lale accepts the offer. The guard points out that this camp does not take Jews, so he should keep quiet about his religion.
He feels profound grief for his scattered family. At the same time, he longs for Gita, and this gives him the sense of purpose he needs to carry on. He must find her. He has promised.
