The Road from the Past: Traveling through history in France, by Ina Caro

…and three more you should read

Tags:

The Tattooist of Auschwitz. This looks like a great read for anyone heading to Poland, or interested in World War Two history. I could also see it making a good movie.

In 1942 Ludwig "Lale" Eisenberg gave up his name for a number: 32407. A Slovakian Jew, Lale was sent to the infamous Auschwitz death camp when he was 26 years old. Upon entering the camp, prisoners were divided into two groups – those too old, too young, too sick, or too weak to work were sent immediately to the gas chambers. The 'lucky' ones were allowed to live, at least for a while longer.

The first step in the process of dehumanizing the prisoners was to take away their identity. A number was tattooed on their arm, a number that would be their only identity while in the camp, and one that would remain with them until their death. Guards never addressed prisoners by name, only by their number, and the prisoners were never allowed identify themselves using anything, but their number.

For three years Lale managed to survive in Auschwitz. Thanks to a facility for multiple languages – including Czech, Slovak, German, Russian, French, and Polish – he was put in charge of tattooing numbers on new arrivals, including number 34902, a young woman named Gita. They both survived the camp, and married in 1945, eventually escaping Communist-controlled Czechoslovakia, and emigrating to Australia.

Though he didn't talk about it until near the end of his life, the work that Lale did, and the faces of the people he tattooed, would haunt him until his death in 2006.

Tags: