The Tattooist of Auschwitz

Trauma theory examines the way that trauma effects those afflicted with it. Due to the horrific events of the Holocaust, survivors were more often than not beset by lingering, distressful effects of their experience for the rest of their lives. One major effect of trauma is a distortion of the way one experiences time. While the event that causes the trauma ends, the effects live on. One way this is expressed in The Tattooist of Auschwitz is the novel being written in the present tense. Though the events in Lale’s life happened long ago, Morris offers the events in a sort of eternal present, indicative of the way that trauma lingers. Lale and Gita were freed from the physical space of Auschwitz, but not the horrors that they endured while they were imprisoned there.

Trauma changes people. Toward the end of their imprisonment, Lale looks at Gita, Cilka, and Dana, and notes that “they are broken, damaged young women” whose “futures have been derailed, and there will be no getting back on the same track” (209). Their experiences in Auschwitz will live on; no matter what kind of life they build beyond the electric fences, their fates have been inexorably altered.