Books similar to The Tattooist Of Auschwitz

[myyve]

I have not long finished the book 'the tattooist of Auschwitz' and have found it completely harrowing and yet so moving at the same time.

The way it was written was frankly remarkable. I just wondered if anybody else has any recommendations on books around Auschwitz? It's something in my opinion, that should be very much known about.

This.

The Happiest Man on Earth: The Life of an Auschwitz Survivor by Eddie Jaku

The Book Thief?

This absolutely, please have a look at @auschwitzmuseum on Twitter to see actually how inaccurate and damaging these kind of books are.

Reader beware.

Never forget ✡️

Isn't it kind of strange to derive enjoyment from reading harrowing fiction?

Primo Levi's books.

For me personally I'm currently reading the survivor and I wouldn't call it an enjoyable read. I read a few pages at a time as it is harrowing but it's important not to forget man's inhumanity to man, if that makes sense.

It's important that the holocaust is remembered but it doesn't quite sit right with me, as a Jew, how it is totemised in popular fiction.

Biography like The Choice and The Gift by Edith Eğer, Holocaust survivor.

Dr Melenges assistant.
He was the one that 'studied' ( brutalized) twins

"Primo Levi's books."

...should be required reading for the entire world.

Wiki describes the style perfectly:

"The calm sobriety of Levi's prose style is all the more striking given the horrific nature of the events he describes. Levi explained in his 1976 Appendix to the work: "I thought that my word would be more credible and useful the more objective it appeared and the less impassioned it sounded; only in that way does the witness in court fulfil his function, which is to prepare the ground for the judge. It is you who are the judges."[12]
He ascribed the clarity of his language to the habits acquired during his training as a chemist: "My model was that of the weekly reports, a normal practice in factories: they must be concise, precise and written in a language accessible to all levels of the firm's hierarchy."[13]"

His clear, factual descriptions of what happened are simple and devastating.
You can get If This Is A Man and The Truce as one volume. The latter is the description of what happened to him after the camp was liberated: starting starved, destitute and shoeless, trying to get home through a ruined Europe with transport and communication networks in tatters, all the fleeting observations and interactions with all the different people from all over the place he meets on the way trying to survive.

The author of the survivor, survived six camps and later went on to become a nazi hunter.

It’s a fine line isn’t it, its a dreadful part of history, I think the museum in Newark has the right balance.

Many of our family was killed in the Irish Famine the English had a huge part in the deaths of a million Irish people but it’s never talked about, rarely written about and that makes me angry and I feel a strong need for more information. But it should be done in a responsible way.

When my dc were preteens, I banned them from reading and watching The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.

I suggested non-fiction books or documentaries instead.

At least when they studied it at school, they understood the myriad historical inaccuracies/problematical aspects.

The graphic novels Maus 1 and Maus 2 by Art Spiegelman. Both his parents were in Auschwitz.

Did you see the book recommendations at the back of the book by this author:
Cilka’s Journey
Three Sisters
Sisters under the Rising Sun

I’ve just finished reading The Tattooist of Auschwitz. It only took two days to read it as I couldn’t put it down. I will read Cilka’s Journey next.

Incredible to see photos of Lale and Gita at the back of the book. Fascinating to read the postscript on pages 257-260 (discussion between Lale and author) and the afterword from Gary Sokolov (Lake and Gira’s son) on pages 263 - 26.

Some of the modern mass-market books recommended upthread were written primarily for entertainment, which is fine as far as it goes, if it gets more people interested in finding out facts, but are regarded by Holocaust historians and educationalists as exploitative and inaccurate.

So I’d agree with some PPs who say move onto direct survivor testimony, and add to their list:

Night, Elie Wiesel
The Children's House of Belsen by Hetty Verolme
Dear God, have you ever gone hungry? Yosef Baʼu
I Was A Doctor in Auschwitz, Gisela Perl
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, Tadeusz Borowski.
We Wept Without Tears: Testimonies of the Jewish Sonderkommando from Auschwitz, Gideon Greif.

For more fiction, The Shawl, by Cynthia Ozick. For young people, the Once series, by Morris Gleitzman, would be a better option than The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. As would the Out of the Hitler Time series by Judith Carr, sometimes overlooked as children’s books. As well as telling a compelling story, they explore Carr’s own experience of the aftermath of the Holocaust and generational trauma in an accessible way.

Primo Levi - if this is a man/the truce. The first book is darkness, and the second emerges into the light. I read those two books, and years later the tattooist of auschwitz and it didn't come close to the power of Primo Levi.

Thank you for the recommendations desperatedaysareover and nobodysdaughter. I would prefer to read direct survivor testimonies as suggested so thank you again.

I did not know The Tattooist of Auschwitz was based on fiction until after reading it.