The Tattooist of Auschwitz

The Tattooist of Auschwitz begins with a young Polish man named Lale is sent to Auschwitz. He voluntarily decided to go to Auschwitz instead of a few Jewish boys. This is the start of an overarching theme for this presentation, sacrifice. Lale is befriended by a man name Aaron after a few weeks in the camp. One day Lale becomes sick with typhus and Aaron saves him from being buried alive by Nazi guards. The guards decide to kill Aaron for meddling with their “task” and eventually promote Lale to the tattooist of Auschwitz. With this unique job, Lale is able to meet every new face that comes into the camp. This allows Lale to help the community of prisoners. He helps a bigger man named Jakub be given more food and the elderly more rest by negotiating with prisoners. Lale serves his community through his response to his suffering. This is a prime example of what CS Lewis instructs his audience to do in response to suffering. Lewis states in “A Problem with Pain”, “when pain is to be born, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all.” This quote exactly shows that embracing suffering does not require one to be brilliant or anything special, they just have to embrace suffering and respond to it in the most appropriate fashion possible. In Lale’s case or anyone in a concentration camp for that matter, is that endurance in something greater than yourself is what will ultimately get you out of this miserable condition. Lewis states that it is in the worst conditions that you see what you truly believe. For Lewis, He was angry at God for taking away Joy but he still clung to his faith. For Lale, it is the service to the community that is this “greater good” which not just encourages him but requires him to make it out alive of that wretched place. Christ was the ultimate model for this sacrificial suffering, in Luke 22:42 it reads, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” This is the moment that we can clearly see how Christ did not resist the horrific pain of the Lord’s Will. And Lale does the same thing for his fellow inmates at Auschwitz.