The Tattooist of Auschwitz Review

The Tattooist of Auschwitz is now streaming on Peacock in the United States and debuts Sunday, May 5th at 9pm EST on Showcase in Canada

Based on the book of the same name by Heather Morris, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is a true story of love and human resilience found within the worst of circumstances, more so for Jews during WWII. The limited series is takes place in the past and the present, and is centered around the real-life story of Lale Sokolov, a Jewish prisoner with the task of tattooing ID numbers on prisoners’ arms as they entered the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. A special case, there was something different about him. Be it charm, or self-preservation, his goal was to get back home to his family in Slovakia. However, that mission change upon meeting a female prisoner named Gita in what was love at first sight. Despite their circumstances, they did their best to survive, while taking every chance to be together, in the hopes of one day living the rest of their lives together outside of the camp.

As mentioned, taking place in the past and present. The story is told from the perspective of an older Lale (Harvey Keitel) as he recounts his story to Heather Morris (Melanie Lynskey), a then nurse an amateur writer who hoped to turn his story into a book. Starting off as a series of conversations at his home, the two quickly developed a close relationship. Creating an unreliable narrator situation, memory can become a fickle thing after so many decades and shame could also be a big motivator in the omission of information. Though there were certain things in Lale’s past that he’d rather keep in the past, it was not necessarily done with him as rehashing that past brought it all back. On the other side, the perspective of the older and wiser Lale helped inform the past storyline, following the younger Lale (Jonah Hauer-King) as he found himself lured to Auschwitz-Birkenau under false pretenses, just like countless others have. Witnessing plenty of atrocities at the hands of the Nazis over his time as a prisoner, he could do nothing but try to survive. In what became too much for Heather to handle, it was a lesson to separate oneself from their work. Still learning, she was merely a woman who wanted to do Lale justice by telling his story right.

Younger Lale’s naivety perhaps got the best of him initially but he certainly would not have survived if not for those he met along the way. Fortunately for him, he lucked into the position of tattooist, a position afforded more freedom and other benefits. Essentially an employee of the Nazi regime, Lale was treated better than a prisoner. However, he was still a captive and still faced the threat of being indiscriminately killed on a whim at any time, like the many others he had to witness. This fact made his relationship with his Nazi handler, Stefan Baretzki (Jonas Nay), that much more complicated. A real wildcard, he had the potential to go off at anytime, and he has against others. In spite of that, he, for the most part, was more of a friend to Lale at least in his mind. Keeping up appearances in front of the other guards, Lale ultimately survived by doing whatever Baretzki told him to do and said whatever he thought Baretzki wanted to hear. And this seemed to work as if it was not for him, he would never have reunited with Gita (Anna Próchniak) following their first meeting. Beyond his relationship with Baretzki, Lale proved very industrious, leveraging his position to create opportunities to spend time with Gita and to help his fellow prisoners at great risk to his own safety.

With much of the Auschwitz-Birkenau saga happening in a bubble, the looming threat of the war arriving at their doorstep was just a matter of time. As many prisoners surely preyed for the day that they would be saved, their time at the camp would come to an end but that wasn’t exactly the end of the story. Regardless of the new hurdles Lale and Gita faced, they were already more than battle-tested so it was only inevitable that they would find a way to get back to one another. Getting married and moving to Australia, they had built a life for themselves. Hitting very personal territory, the older Lale was more protective about this section of his life. Still in grief after Gita’s death, another reason for wanting to record his experiences was arguably to relive his memories of Gita to be with her one more time and very soon after, he would get that chance. Not living long enough to see the book about his life be released, Hannah fought long and hard to make sure Lale’s story was shared with the world and 11 years following Sokolov’s death, the book was finally published.

Not reinventing the wheel in terms of story, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is not the first Holocaust story, and probably won’t be the last, but where this one succeeds is the emotional connection it creates between viewers and Lale. Using the past and the present to construct a deep and nuanced portrait of a man simply trying to survive and then contending with the demons that came with it. That being said, it was Lale and then everything else as a means to advance his story. Another harrowing tale of overcoming adversity, that part is not new but the emotion coming from both perspectives made for a compelling journey that was sometimes hard to watch. Accentuated by another strong Hans Zimmer score (along with Kara Talve), it stood out even more. Rushing the end of the story into an overstuffed epilogue, those key moments were not given proper time to breathe therefore did not hit as hard as they could have.

In the end, the best part of The Tattooist of Auschwitz is its performances. The dual performances from Jonah Hauer-King and Harvey Keitel as the younger and older Lale were strong in the own ways, reflecting different stages of his life and informing one another. His determination is shown through both incarnations as the former brings a youthful relatable energy and the latter brings layers to pain and trauma to his beaten and battered version, If it weren’t for the series’ multi time period premise, it would definitely be less interesting. The Lale show, for better or worse, it did feature some solid supporting performances. Lynskey adds more depth to Heather, Próchniak had her compelling moments (despite being shortchanged) as Gita, and Nay was equal parts charming and sadistic as Baretzki. All had great chemistry with Hauer-King or Keitel.

Overall, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is a solid period drama series that may not bring anything new to the table but still packs a decent emotional punch.

still courtesy of Synchronicity Films/Sky Studios

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.