The book tells the story of how Slovakian Jew Lale Sokolov, who was imprisoned at Auschwitz in 1942, fell in love with a girl he was tattooing at the concentration camp.
[10] Morris met with Lale for three years until his death in 2006[11] to hear his story about his time with Gita in Auschwitz and take notes for her screenplay.
[10] Told from the perspective of Lale Sokolov, the story follows his journey as a prisoner of Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.
After being forcibly transported on a long journey on a livestock train with other Jewish prisoners, Lale arrives at Auschwitz II-Birkenau work camp where, within his first night, he witnesses two men killed by the SS.
Lale briefly meets a beautiful, young woman while tattooing her arm upon her entry to the camp, and he experiences love at first sight.
Lale uses his relationship with Baretski to gain increased privileges within the camp, including the ability to communicate with the beautiful woman he met earlier, Gita.
Lale then risks his own life to exchange jewels and money with a sympathetic German worker who comes to the camp each day for medicine and items of clothing to help prisoners who are suffering or gain favours with the SS.
Every day he is escorted to town by a Russian soldier to procure young, attractive German women to come to parties at the chalet in the evening.
Once there, he escapes and makes his way to his hometown to find his sister alive, but learns that his parents are still missing and that his older brother has died.
The narrator of the book is 25-year-old Slovakian Jew from Krompachy, Lale (Lali) Sokolov, who meets a young woman while serving as the Tätowierer in Auschwitz II-Birkenau from 1942 until 1945.
Victor is a paid labourer from Poland who gives Lale rations of food in exchange for valuables while visiting Auschwitz II-Birkenau to build crematoriums.
Morris writes using simple, short sentences from a third-person point of view where Lale is the omniscient narrator and protagonist of the story.
"[12] The novel utilises many elements of the Romantic genre, specifically through the key plot line of Lale and Gita's love story.
Timonthy Niedermann, writing in The New York Journal of Books, calls the novel “at once sobering and poignant, both weighted with unspeakable horrors and uplifted by the unique hope of love”.
[13] He felt that while the book lacks physical descriptions, and Morris is “vague about the specifics of the extermination process”, her depiction of humanity in the characters is a strength.
[3] She warns that those who read the Czech translation of the book may take its stories as fact,[3] which the Memorial Center believes is "dangerous and disrespectful to history".
[14] Witek-Malicka also rejects Morris' claims that Doctor Mengele conducted sterilisation tests on men in Auschwitz and that in 1942 Lale gave Gita penicillin for her typhoid fever; this antibiotic was not widely available until after the war.
[14] Hirsh, Láníček, Mitschke & Shields, writing in the Australian Journal of Jewish Studies, state that creative license is common, but that “Heather Morris’ steadfast reliance on conversations she shared with Lale Sokolov towards the end of his life have contributed to a simplification that narrows understanding of the reality of Auschwitz”.
[6] The creative director of Synchronicity Films, Claire Mundell, secured the rights to The Tattooist of Auschwitz after making a deal with Bonnier Books UK in 2018.