The Tattooist of Auschwitz

Are you looking for a poignant story that also displays man’s durability? How about adding viciousness and tenderness to the formula? Then you will want to read Heather Morris’s The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Did I mention a reciprocated love affair under holocaust conditions? That being said, The Memorial Research Centre of Auschwitz disputes some of Heather Morris’s details (according to The Jewish News) due to factual errors. For example in the book, Lale Sokolov (the tattooer) says he tattooed his lover-to-be Gita Furman’s arm with the number 34902, while the Research Center says it was 4562. Lale told his story to Heather Morris when he was very old. What number was really on Gita’s arm is a moot point. She died in 2003, three years before Lale told his story. Lale divulged his story to the author while in his late eighties (he died in 2006). Did he have a touch of Alzheimer’s disease? Or does it really matter? The Research Center said that there are many other factual errors in his story. Oh well, it’s not up to me to say who is right or wrong. Maybe that’s why Morris added “a novel” in small letters on the book’s cover. I, for one, thought the story was real.  

A minor flaw in the book (or novel) is the once in awhile lighthearted incident. When that would happen, it would remind me of the sitcom, Hogan’s Heroes. I didn’t think there was any room for levity in Lale’s story. Anyway in 1942, twenty-five year old Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, sees a poster in his hometown. “It demanded that each Jewish family hand over a child aged eighteen or older to work for the German government. The whispers, the rumors about what had been happening in other towns, had finally come to Krompachy. It seemed that the Slovakian government was acquiescing further to Hitler. The poster warned in bold type that if any family had such a child and did not surrender them, the whole family would be taken to the concentration camp.” Lale reported to the government and offered himself for transportation. Did the Nazis keep their word and leave Lale's family alone? Does a cattle train qualify as transportation? When he finally gets to his destination “dogs are barking, orders are yelled in German, bolts are released, wagon doors clang open. Get down from the train, leave your possessions...dogs snap and bite at those who are slow to move!” As the men are herded through the gates of the camp, “Lale looks up at the German words wrought from the metal: ARBEIT MACHT FREI (work sets you free)." Do you think the Germans are lying?

“I am commander Rudolf Hoess. I am in charge here at Auschwitz...now you will be processed here, and then you will be taken to your new home: Auschwitz Two-Birkenau.” A tattooer stabs the number 32407 on Lale’s left forearm...the men are told to strip...faster, faster...next is a cold shower, then they are issued old Russian army uniforms and boots. But don’t dress until your head is shaved. Lale is assigned Block 7, a large hut with triple bunks down one wall. The men scramble and shove each other out of the way. No food till the morning (a cup of smelly brown liquid with a piece of potato in it) and the mattresses are stuffed with hay. Wow! And I thought my first day at Parris Island was tough! The days are grueling building new barracks and crematories...moving rocks from one place to another. One day, Lale witnesses the German SS cramming naked men into a bus, locking it and then dropping a gas canister from a roof vent...killing all inside (this is one of the incidents that The Memorial Research Centre of Auschwitz says never happened). Lale faints and comes down with typhus. Somehow the men hide him for the next seven days while he recovers. When he mends, he is offered the job of assistant tattooer (tatowierer in German) and reluctantly takes it. And the story is off and running! That’s what happened in the first 35 pages...I’m not telling you anything else. Mum’s the word. Not a peep. Nada.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: One of the strangest holocaust movies I ever saw was Roberto Benigni’s 1998 movie, Life is Beautiful. Have you seen it? Benigni won the 1999 Academy Award for Best Actor. It was kind of comedy meets tragedy. A very sad movie. Here’s a synopsis from Google:

“A gentle Jewish-Italian waiter, Guido Orefice (Roberto Benigni) meets Dora (Nicoletta Braschi), a pretty school teacher, and wins her over with his charm and humor. Eventually they marry and have a son, Giosue (Giorgio Cantarini). Their happiness is abruptly halted, however when Guido and Giosue are separated from Dora and taken to a concentration camp. Determined to shelter his son from the horrors of his surroundings, Guido convinces Giosue that their time in camp is merely a game.”

Twenty years later, I’m still trying to form an opinion.          

the NEUROMORPHS

The author sent me a copy of his novel to read and review:

Move over Yul Brynner and your Magnificent seven, there’s a new sheriff in town. It’s Dennis Meredith’s Patrick Jensen and his seven retired Navy Seals. This also goes for you Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Steven Seagal and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson! Could you take on a army of invincible androids while also battling the Russian mob? I don’t think so. Jensen and his Seals can...at least on paper. Meredith’s novel is by no means a classic thriller or fantasy, but it is interesting entertainment. These kinds of novels are quickly forgotten only because they are mirror images of prior impossible scenarios. I thought that the author’s prose was okay, but he didn’t score any points in the empathy category. And give me a break...would Patrick’s wife, Leah, do what she did? Really? And Patrick would let her? That one was a stretch. Anyway, let me tell you a little about the story.

While Robert Landers, a prominent Houston lawyer, is at work, his servant helper android, Andrew, is mimicking Landers’ voice and mannerisms. Why? Andrew is a typical domesticated helper android made by Helper, Inc. When Robert comes home, his bourbon and soda isn’t waiting for him. He finds his android in the bathroom. “What are you doing in there, goddammit?” Andrew says, “I apologize, sir, I - “  Landers took a shower and when he came out, Andrew was circling him in order to make “a three-dimensional virtual image” of Landers while practicing Landers voice. Landers is furious, “What the hell are you doing?” Andrew repeated every thing that Landers said in order to achieve a perfect voice match. Landers said, “Damn, you’re defective! I’m going to trade your plastic ass in, maybe on a girl robot that fucks.” That was the last thing Landers said. “Andrew grabbed Landers by the throat, lifted him off the floor, and crushed his windpipe.”

Who modified this previously docile android into a killer? The doorbell rings, it's a Russian mobster, “Is he dead?” Andrew says, “Yes, Dimitri, he is dead.” Did the Russians have someone change the android’s operating system? We find out that the answer is yes when Andrew is remade into the new Robert Landers by a former employee of Helper, Inc, Gregory Mencken. Apparently, the Russians want to knock off rich people in order to grab their assets. Landers is the first to be replaced by an android. Mencken, an fired engineer from Helper, Inc. is helping in the makeover only because the Russians will kill his family if he doesn’t cooperate. The new Robert Landers will now go to his bank and transfer all his money to a bank in Arizona. All of this happens in the first five pages. The androids with the new operating system (OS) codes will be known as the neuromorphs. “Helpers with this code embedded in their OS’s could act independently! In the worst case, they could even escape human control.”
 
Where does retired Navy Seal, Patrick Jensen, and his wife, Leah, fit in? Well, they buy a co-op apartment in Phoenix and guess who is on the acceptance committee?...the neuromorphs. Can you see how lethal the combination of Patrick and his Navy Seals, killer androids and the Russian mob will be when they collide? Later Patrick will ask Helper, Inc. software expert, Garry Lapoint, what he thinks the new androids are, “Well, it’s a new operating system the criminals needed to give the androids the ability to act independently to kill their owners and embezzle their money...but remember, these Helpers have neuromophic brains. They evolve. They probably consider themselves a life form, like humans.” They are clandestine assault robots with a collective hive mind...Ouch! Can you foresee the confrontation that’s coming? The story has its ups and downs with a lot of trite and corny parts, but if you are a fan of this type of never-ending action you will love this novel and for that reason I'm recommending it, even though it’s not my cup of tea.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: I believe the first novel written about robots was Isaac Asimov’s 1950 bestseller I, Robot. The novel has several short stories that tie together. Some stories are about robots gone mad, mind-reading robots and robots with a sense of humor. In Dennis Meredith’s novel, The Neuromorphs, the robots didn’t have any sense of humor. That and the fact that they didn’t breathe were sure tip-offs for Patrick Jensen and his Navy Seals in sorting out the androids from humans.

In I, Robot, Asimov establishes the three laws of Robotics:

1-A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2-A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law.

3-A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second.