The Tattooist of Auschwitz: Motifs 1 key example

These tattoos were intended to replace their identities and histories with an impersonal series of numbers. Prisoners become entries in a list instead of people with families and futures. The act of tattooing, in the eyes of the Nazi regime, signals the first step in this transformation. Once marked, the prisoners are locked into the camp system. They can be counted and tracked, and their personhood disappears under a number.

Lale’s role as the tattooist complicates this idea for the reader. Lale himself was appalled when his own tattoo was applied. When Pepan asks him to take over the job as tattooist, he initially refuses because he can’t imagine giving someone else that same feeling. He also doesn’t want to cause his fellow prisoners physical pain. When he eventually takes the role—even though he does everything he can to tattoo people gently—he becomes split between two worlds. He is both a prisoner and someone who is given power to enforce the dehumanization that the Nazis were trying to implement. Each time Lale inks a number onto another prisoner’s arm, he participates in stripping their personhood from them. This places him in a moral gray zone. He knows he is helping a cruel system, but he also knows that his position allows him both to survive and to help others. That tension follows him through the novel. Lale feels the weight of each number, even when his hand becomes practiced and the motion turns automatic. The repetition of tattoo scenes throughout the book shows how routine and everyday violence becomes at Auschwitz. The more often it happens, the less anyone reacts. The tattooing process, for Lale, becomes one part of the camp’s daily rhythm, as normal as lining up for food or being counted. Yet the story reminds the reader that each number belongs to a person. Every arm Lale tattoos belongs to a new arrival who is just as bewildered and scared as he once was.

By the end of the novel, Lale’s own tattoo carries new meaning. He no longer sees it only as a symbol of suffering; it’s also become a visual representation of his survival against all odds. It’s also the only document that links him to his homeland, and he’s able to use it instead of papers as the train he’s on crosses the border into Slovakia. The mark meant to erase him from the world eventually becomes the thing that allows him to return home.