“To save one is to save the world.”
In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, was forcibly transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. When his prisoners learned he was fluent in several languages, he was made to work as a Tatowierer, permanently marking his fellow prisoners. One day in July, Lale meets a terrified young woman, Gita, and vows that they will survive the camp and get married. Heather Morris’ The Tattooist of Auschwitz is a mostly faithful recreation of the harrowing experiences of Lale Sokolov during his two and a half years of imprisonment, tattooing some of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust. Whilst vivid in their barbarism, books like The Tattooist of Auschwitz are also a testament to the resilience of hope, love and humanity even in the darkest of times. Join us at What We Reading for the best reads if you loved The Tattooist of Auschwitz.
Cilka’s Journey (The Tattooist Of Auschwitz #2) – Heather Morris
First up on our list of books like The Tattooist of Auschwitz is Heather Morris’ immediate follow-up, Cilka’s Journey. Cilka Klein is eighteen years old when the Soviets liberate Auschwitz-Birkenau. However, Cilka is one of the many women sentenced to a tenure inside a labour camp on charges of assisting the Nazis. They don’t take into account the myriad of circumstances Cilka and thousands of women like her found themselves in during the war to survive.
Once she arrives at Vorkuta Gulag in the furthest reaches of Siberia, where she begins her fifteen-year-long sentence, Cilka uses all of her beauty, charm and wits to survive. Once again featuring brutal surroundings and incredible human resilience, Cilka’s Journey is undoubtedly one of the best reimaginings if you loved The Tattooist of Auschwitz.
The Nightingale – Kristin Hannah
In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads to the front. When a captain requisitions Vianne’s home following the German invasion of France, she and her daughter are forced to either live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food, money or hope, Vianne is forced from impossible decision to impossible decision to keep her family alive as danger closes in around them.
Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old, searching for a purpose in life. Whilst thousands of Parisians march to the front, she encounters Gaetan, a partisan who believes that the French can fight the Nazis from within. She falls in love with him but, when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance, risking life and limb to save others.
The Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan
In 1949, four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, met every week to play mahjong and reminisce about what they had left behind in their home country. Bound by loss and united by their hope for their daughters’ futures, they call their meetings the Joy Luck Club. Their children think their advice is irrelevant to contemporary America. That is until a series of crises reveal how much they have instinctively picked up from their mothers’ past.
Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club is a sensitive exploration of the connection between mothers and daughters, and undoubtedly one of the best books for those who loved The Tattooist of Auschwitz. As each member of the club unravels the truth about their life, each of their stories becomes more entangled and intertwined.
Prisoner B-3087 – Alan Gratz
One of the most timeless books about the Holocaust, Alan Gratz’s Prisoner B-3087 follows Yanek Gruener, a Jewish boy living in Poland in the 1930s who suddenly finds himself at the mercy of the Nazis following their invasion of his country. Everything he has, everyone he knows, has been taken from him. When he is taken prisoner, his arm is tattooed with the words: Prisoner B-3087.
He is then bounced from one hellish concentration camp to another as the Second World War erupts around him. Like The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Gratz’s historical fiction story depicts the evil atrocities of the Holocaust, but also captures the incredible glimmers of hope nestled in amongst the horror. Also based on an astonishing true story, Prisoner B-3087 is the story of Yanek’s struggles to survive the terrors without losing his will and who he is.
The Lost Wife – Alyson Richman
In Prague on the eve of the Second World War, a young art student named Lenka falls in love with Josef. The pair marry but, like countless others, are torn apart by the war’s outbreak. In the United States, Josef becomes a renowned obstetrician and starts a family, but never forgets the wife he thinks died in the camp. Yet, thanks to her skills as an artist and fuelled by the memories of Josef, Lenka has survived.
A chance encounter in New York decades later sees the pair brought back together. From their life in Prague to the horrors of Nazi Europe, Alyson Richman’s The Lost Wife follows Josef and Lenka’s life and love. Like The Tattooist of Auschwitz, the book explores the endurance of first love, the resilience of the human spirit and our ability to hold on to our dearest memories.
All The Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr
Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History where her father works. When the Nazis invade, the pair flee to Saint-Malo, a walled citadel, bringing with them one of the most prized and dangerous jewels from the museum. Werner Pfenning, an orphan in a German mining town, becomes an expert in mending crucial instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to help track down the resistance.
Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See is a historical fiction book similar to The Tattoist of Auschwitz. Through Marie-Laure and Werner’s lives colliding throughout the story, readers get a thrilling and beautiful portrayal of two individuals trying to survive the destruction, whilst trying to do good to one another, against all the odds.
The Alice Network – Kate Quinn
Another one of the best books like The Tattooist of Auschwitz treads the line between fact and fiction with its WW2 backdrop, The Alice Network is the 2017 international bestseller by Kate Quinn. In 1947, American college student Charlie St. Clair is unmarried, pregnant and about to be thrown out by her proper family. When she is sent to Europe to take care of her ‘problem’, she embarks on an investigation to discover what happened to her beloved cousin, Rose, who disappeared during the war.
In 1915, Eve Gardiner is desperate to join the fight against the Germans. She gets her chance when she is recruited as a spy working under the mesmerising Lili aka. the ‘Queen of Spies’. Thirty years later, Eve is a drunk and isolated woman in a crumbling London house, still haunted by the betrayal that led to the collapse of the Alice Network. Then a young American barges through her door with a name she hasn’t heard for decades, kickstarting a mission to find the truth.
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
