Why do we read survivor stories?

by Aaina Jassell

For this article I will be focusing on a novel which I read recently called “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” by Heather Morris. It follows the true story of a Slovakian Jew named Lale Sokolov during 1942 in the Holocaust which took over Eastern Europe. It shows his tale of finding love during arguably one of the darkest times in history as well as how he managed to survive these atrocities.

Whilst reading this novel I was struck by three main things.

1. I now know a lot more about the Holocaust than I ever learnt in history at school.

2. My emotions went all over the place and during some moments I truly did forget this was a survivor’s story, I felt for sure that Lale would be caught and killed.

3. I realised truly how lucky I am to not have had to go through something like that.

Survivor stories are not just novels which give us entertainment, they have a deeper meaning, a darker meaning. These stories feed our souls; they allow us to go back in time to a place of persecution (which realistically wasn’t that long ago in this instance). Reading a survivor story can spread the truth about what happened. This was their life and unlike some of the history books they have nothing to gain by covering up information. They are the truth. The idea that this novel is an insight into history, and an opportunity for learning, shows a lot. I had no idea that in the camps the Nazi’s had put in place, the prisoners had different jobs. The prisoners were used to build the camp, to go through all the clothes and belongings of other prisoners and to tattoo the number onto the prisoner’s arms. I also had no idea that people from the surrounding areas came into the camp willingly every day to help build or sort through belongings and at the end of the day they could return home, like this was just a normal job. This raises the question of did these civilians know what they were doing? Did they know the purpose of their work? As well as the civilians and the prisoners, we get an insight into the lives of the Nazi’s. In this particular novel we become very familiar with a SS soldier called Baretski. We learn that he is deathly afraid of his boss, much like how the prisoners were afraid of him, and that he has the

power to kill Lale anytime. Baretski throughout gives Lale advice on how to stay alive and even conducts favours for Lale, such as getting Gita, Lale’s love, a job at the administration building so that she can stay warm. This shows us how these SS soldiers were just young men with little education who had lost their way. Even though we are shown how Baretski can be kind we are often reminded of his lack of empathy and his love for power by him frequently shooting prisoners and laughing at troubling sights. Lale says that he hopes Baretski won’t survive again reminding us of the demonised SS soldiers. From this we can learn that most of the time these SS soldiers weren’t trained and therefore they were often very volition with their weapons and actions. Before reading this over I genuinely thought that the SS were some machine military solders who just killed everyone in their wake however this most certainly was not true. These SS soldiers casually walked around the camp and looked over the prisoners, the majority of them were young and untrained and they are nothing like machines. Though they did kill a massive amount

of people it was not in a uniformed style like I once thought. There is a harrowing moment in the novel where a couple of prisoners are outside going to the toilet at night when a few SS soldiers who happened to be walking past just shoot at these two men out of nowhere and walk off laughing. This moment was key for me in realising although the SS soldiers were just young, uneducated men, they had a massive amount of power and control over these unarmed prisoners.

During this novel my emotions truly went off on a rollercoaster. For the majority, I was devastated and shocked with the whole camp and the events however there are little moments in which I felt happiness and a sense of unity which I never would have thought would have a place in a book like this. The sense of time was so vague that you could never tell how long had past until Lale casually mentioned it as a passing thought. I felt just how I imagine the prisoners would have felt, capturing every moment in case it would be their last, finding happiness in one of the most dreadful places and never knowing how long you had been stuck in this place. I was in absolute awe of how these characters were in the worst place in the worst time yet they still managed to live, not just be alive but truly live. They had friends which became family, there was community and a sense of togetherness and even romance! These people had been brought together from all over Eastern Europe, speaking all different tongues yet they managed to live their lives and celebrate all the small things. Every survivor is brave and an inspiration to us all as I am pretty sure if I was in a situation like the one they faced I would not be the one spreading hope, I would most certainly being the one giving up. These stories remind us of how lucky we truly are that we do not face these problems, that these events to not haunt us. If you ever feel the need to remind yourself of how lucky you are then a survivor story is the novel for you. Whilst reading this I was reminded that although it hasn’t even been 80 years since this happened on such a huge scale, the world has not changed as much how we would have liked. This specific holocaust was an enormous shock to the entire world, that someone could treat other human beings this bad and get away with it for so long and no one knew. I would love to believe that we have moved on and put events such as these in the past however that is not the truth. Currently while we are all at home doing online school or online work in China the Uighur Muslims are being forced into concentration camps much like the ones from this book in terrible conditions filled with famine, disease, death and worse. I, like all of you, am so lucky that I did not have to go through the 1940 Holocaust but, as well, I am lucky I am not going through a holocaust now in 2021. I fear that we will have many more survivor stories to read in our future.

This is why we read survivor stories, not just for education but to understand the atrocities which men before us have committed on a deeper level and to avoid them. It seems we as a race have not completely learnt this lesson but, I am hopeful that one day we will have no need for survivor stories and that we will finally be at peace. This is a very hopeful wish but until it becomes true, we should all keep reading the stories of these strong and brave survivors.