Book #13: The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
Number of pages: 270
This is a book that I wanted to read for a long time, and it wasn't until I started reading that I realised it was about a real person, Lale Sokolov; the only thing that I will spoil about this is that he did survive the holocaust.
As she sets out at the end of the book, Heather Morris carried out research, in the form of interviewing Lale himself before his death, so this book goes into great detail about Lale's love for an inmate called Gita, and his determination that both of them should survive.
It didn't surprise me that the book was completely unflinching in its portrayal of all the horrors of concentration camp life, which seemed even worse than any holocaust film I've seen has made out, including the fact that one of the women in the camp (Cilka) was raped by an officer.
This is definitely a must-read book; it is shocking at times, but it is also a very easy book to get into, and you'll be rooting for Lale from the start. Heather Morris has also written another Biography about Cilka, which I would like to read at some point.
Next book: The Inimitable Jeeves (P.G. Wodehouse)