The Tattooist of Auschwitz real story explained and what happened to Lale and Gita

2 May 2024, 10:46

By Alice Dear

As The Tattooist of Auschwitz becomes a TV series, we take a look at the true story of Lale Sokolov and Gita Furman and their story of finding love in the darkest of places.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris became a best-selling book back in 2018 and now, six years on, the book has been adapted into a six-part series starring the likes of Jonah Hauer-King, Anna Próchniak and Harvey Keitel.

The series, like the heart-wrenching book, follows the true story of Slovakian Jew Lale Sokolov who was imprisoned at Auschwitz during the Second World War where he fell in love with a woman called Gita Furman within the concentration camp.

The real Lale kept the story of how he and his wife met private for 60 years before deciding, following Gita's death in 2003, to meet with Heather Morris. Over a number of years he told her the unique love story which ultimately became the book and now the TV series.

Lale Sokolov was born in Slovakia in 1916 and at the age of 26-years-old was sent to Auschwitz where he had the number 32407 tattooed on his arm by a French man named Pepan.

During the beginning of his imprisonment at Auschwitz, Lale was forced to construct new housing blocks as the camp's size grew. Later, he became very ill with typhoid and was cared for by the man who tattooed him on his arrival to the camp, Pepan.

After his recovery, Pepan made Lale his assistant, which is how took on the role of tattooist for the victims arriving at the camp.

When Pepan was shipped out of Auschwitz, Lale for forced to take his position and was closely monitored by an SS officer as he carried out the task of marking the prisoners. Because of his position, Lale was allowed extra rations, he ate in a separate administration building and slept in a single room away from the other prisoners.

However, Lale spent a lot of his time in the camp trying to help others, and often bartered gems stolen from Nazis for food and medicine to those suffering the most.

In an interview from 2018, author Heather revealed: "Lali [a nickname for Lale] rationalised his work by deciding that if you came to him for numbering then you were one of the lucky ones – it meant you got to see the sun come up the next day, and maybe the day after that too."

She added: "He had a unique position in Auschwitz and he used it to save as many people as he could."

One day, while tattooing, Lale met Gita for the first time where he says he instantly fell in love with her. In an interview from 2004, he said: "I tattooed her number on her left arm, and she tattooed her number in my heart."

Lale was able to communicate with Gita through his SS guard, who smuggled letters between them and let him visit her block in Birkenau. He would also smuggle her extra rations and used his position to have her moved to a better work station.

In 1945, Lale and Gita were separated when she was sent away from Auschwitz. In the same year, Lale was liberated from Auschwitz and travelled to his hometown of Krompachy in Czechoslovakia and began his search for Gita.

Lale says it was during a journey to Bratislava (an entry point for survivors) that he was finally reunited with his beloved Gita, when she stepped in front of his horse and cart. He says the first thing he asked when they came together was whether she would marry him - she said yes.

Lale and Gita got married and emigrated to Australia in 1949 to start a new life, setting up a textile business and welcoming their son Gary, who was born in 1961.

It was through Gary that Heather connected with Lale, after he told her that his father had a unique story to tell about the Holocaust. Lale had not spoken about his time in the concentration camp for decades due to fears he would be viewed as a Nazi collaborator.

After Gita's death in 2003, Lale met with Heather Morris - who was also based in Australia - many times over a three year period where he relayed his story to her in regular meetings.

Lale Sokolov died in 2006 at the age of 90-years-old. Heather has previously revealed that he was keen to have the meetings finished so he could join his beloved Gita; "He kept asking me, 'Have you finished yet? I need to hurry up and join her!'," the author explained in 2018.

While there has been some criticism aimed towards Heather Morris about inaccuracies in the book, the author has since responded by saying that because Lale waited 60 years to tell the story of him and Gita, the story was created from his memories and his experiences.

“The book does not claim to be an academic historical piece of nonfiction, I’ll leave that to the academics and historians,” she wrote in an email to The New York Times: “It is Lali’s story. I make mention of history and memory waltzing together and straining to part, it must be accepted after 60 years this can happen but I am confident of Lali’s telling of his story, only he could tell it and others may have a different understanding of that time but that is their understanding, I have written Lali’s.”

The TV series director, Tali Shalom-Ezer, recently added to this response by saying: "When I read the scripts I felt like all the questions I had when I read the book were answered.

"Lali only started to tell his story 60 years after he left Auschwitz and we know the nature of memory is that events can be jumbled up. There were questions for me about how he felt about his special position. I'm glad we're getting to explore some of that."

In an interview with The Daily Mail back in 2018, Heather reflected on her time spent with Lale, saying: "In the years after Auschwitz Lali had an uncanny ability to live life in the now. He was very skilled at shutting down his past.

"It took me three years of visiting him two or three times a week to piece together those memories. He had survivor's guilt, a pain he'd buried for 60 years. There was an element of the confessional about it but his primary focus was telling the world about Gita after she had died."

The Tattooist of Auschwitz will be released onto Sky and Peacock on 2nd May 2024 with six episodes telling the story of Lale and Gita.