The Tattooist of Auschwitz Is Difficult But Necessary Viewing

The Tattooist of Auschwitz is a brutal and relentless viewing experience. Based on the true story of Lali Sokolov (Jonah Hauer-King), the six-episode Peacock series follows Lali after he is sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1942. Like many, he doesn’t understand the true horror that awaits him. No one wants to or can believe that the rumors about places like Auschwitz are true. 

A fellow prisoner takes an interest in him and Lali is given the opportunity to become the concentration camp’s tattooist, the person who inks the number on each incoming prisoner. At first he balks at the idea. It is a horrible job but it is also a way to survive. “I was 26 and I wanted to live,” he says. “They offered me a way and I took it.” 

When he meets Gita (Anna Próchniak) while tattooing her, it is love at first sight. But the series is not a love story. It is about two people doing everything they can to survive the most horrific, demeaning, and inhumane conditions. What they went through, no one should endure. 

Director Tali Shalom-Ezer forces the viewer to confront the atrocities of the Holocaust. Hundreds sent naked to gas chambers. People hung in front of other prisoners or shot in the head at the whim of a Nazi officer. Starvation. Disease. Infection. Mutilation. Sexual assault. Children and pregnant women murdered. “I don’t see any babies around here, do you?” one officer sneers to Lali. The direction, combined with Hans Zimmer and Kara Talve’s melancholy score and David Katznelson's bleak cinematography, immerses the viewer in the disturbing reality.

The drama is set within the framework of an older Lali (Harvey Keitel), now in his 80s and living in Australia, telling his story to Heather Morris (Melanie Lynskey in a somewhat questionable blond wig). Heather, a nurse who is connected to Lali through mutual friends, is a novice writer who doesn’t fully understand the scope of what she is getting into. It’s a more passive role for Lynskey (Yellowjackets, The Last of Us) but her compassion and empathy make Heather a stand-in for the viewer. 

Heather is horrified by Lali’s story and what he and Gita went through. Just listening to what they experienced affects her health. “I was not prepared for how overwhelmed I would be listening to your memories,” she tells him. But Heather also feels guilty about her reaction. “To make it about me would be a bloody insult,” she says to her worried husband. Viewers may find themselves in a similar predicament. How can one complain that watching the series is challenging when there are those who actually lived through it?

The series is about much more than the horrors of the Holocaust. It is about Lali’s regret. Why didn’t he turn around to look at his mother one last time? It is also about his guilt — choices he made so he and Gita would survive. He is haunted by those who died at Auschwitz and by Stefan Baretzki (played by Jonas Nay with an unhinged nefariousness), the Nazi officer in charge of him. Lali must reconcile the fact that Baretzki was a truly evil person who often killed just because he was in a bad mood. But Lali also knows that he “would not be alive today if not for him.” How do you live with what you did so that you would have a future when others did not? How do you begin to forgive yourself? How do you find happiness? The Tatttooist of Auschwitz grapples with these questions and offers no easy answers. 

Hauer-King transforms himself for the role, becoming more gaunt as the series progresses, and drawing viewers into Lali’s story. Keitel is indelibly poignant as an old man now reflecting on his life in full. Próchniak’s expressive face speaks volumes. Together they tell a story that will stay with the viewer long after Barbra Streisand's original song “Love Will Survive” plays over the final credits.

It’s an odd choice that Peacock is choosing to release all six episodes at once. Each episode is devastating. Giving viewers a break between them would be a welcome reprieve and would also help to ensure that such a significant and important series does not get lost in the sea of streaming shows. 

The grueling series is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Hulu’s recent We Were the Lucky Ones, which told of one family’s incredible story of survival. That series was full of hope. The Tattooist is brimming with horror. 

The series comes at a fraught time when antisemitic rhetoric and crimes are on the rise. Campuses across the country are currently in turmoil. Most of those who survived the Holocaust have passed away. “We got old but time won,” Lali, who passed away in 2006, says. Despite the many movies and TV series about that time, it is hard to even wrap your head around the cruelty and violence that the Jewish people endured during World War II. 

An epitaph at the end of the series tells viewers it took Heather 11 years to find a publisher for Lali’s story. When the book was finally published in 2018, it was greeted with some controversy, particularly regarding the story’s historical inaccuracies.The Auschwitz Memorial Museum called out its factual errors. Viewers are reminded at the beginning of each episode that the series is inspired by the book, based on Lali’s memories and that “some names have been changed and some elements have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes.”

Even accounting for any dramatic license taken, The Tattooist of Auschwitz serves as a potent reminder that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. 

The Tattooist of Auschwitz premieres May 2 on Peacock. Join the discussion about the show in our forums. 

Amy Amatangelo is a writer and editor. In addition to Primetimer, her work can be found in Paste Magazine, Emmy Magazine and the LA Times. She also is the Treasurer of the Television Critics Association.