The tattooist of Auschwitz (V) 

Chapter 15 is short and all of it is dedicated to the love affair of the two lovers. For a moment — after bribing the kapo of Block 29 — the couple abandon themselves to fate and make love as if there were no tomorrow. They don't mind being surprised by some soldier; they are so possessed by the burning desire to merge into one another that they ignore the slightest precautions. Do you know of those birds that sing and sing during heat and the hunter can reach the foot of the tree where they are perched without being seen?

Hero or collaborator? This is the doubt that goes round the head of the protagonist. When Gita tells him that her friend Cilka is a Nazi plaything, Lale, who in a way is also a whim of his captors, knows that the young woman has no other way out; that if she resisted the Senior Commandant's requirements, she would not see a new day born.

Drop the bombs. Drop the bombs! The allies are close. A United States aircraft has passed over the compound several times and children and adults, excited, wave their arms pointing at the crematoria; but when the plane takes height and disappears into the skies, what these people receive is a burst of bullets fired from the towers.

Chapter 19 opens with a statement: Lale has lost his Jewish faith. The loss began the first night in Auschwitz.

Also in this chapter there is an event that can cost the protagonist his life, because the Slovakian's fiddle has been discovered by the SS and he´s taken to Block 11, known because it´s a Punishment Block and is very close to the Black Wall, the execution wall.

From my Borstal.

LDR

The tattooist of Auschwitz.- Morris, Heather.- Zaffre, London, 2018