Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Tattooist Of Auschwitz’ On Peacock, Where A Holocaust Survivor Recalls A Surprising Love Story In One Of The Worst Concentration Camps

Dramas about the Holocaust tend to take place in places other than the concentration camps where Jews faced starvation, degradation and mass death. A new series streaming on Peacock takes place in one of the biggest and most famous camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau. But would you believe us if we told you it was a love story?

THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “Melbourne, 2003.” An elderly man sits in his apartment, still haunted by the images of the people and the horrors he experienced at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

The Gist: Lale Sokolov (Harvey Keitel), now in his 80s, is looking to tell his story about his time in Auschwitz; he’s hired Heather Morris (Melanie Lynskey) to write that story. This is Heather’s first big project, but she’s taken training in memoir and biography, and when Lale starts telling his story, she prefers to listen rather than take notes.

He starts the story in Bratislava in 1942. By then, the Nazis had taken away many rights from Jews at this point, and young Lale (Jonah Hauer-King) finds himself in conflict with some German soldiers who are beating another Jew in the street. One of the soldiers is someone he went to school with.

When he goes out to the country to visit his family, they pass around a flyer at dinner that says the Slovakian government wants one person from each Jewish household to volunteer for a work detail, “to help aid in the war effort.” Lale volunteers to go, thinking it’ll be good for him.

But when he gets to the train station, he encounters his former classmate again, who tells Lale to run away as fast as he can. He sees a man objecting to the dirty boxcar where everyone is being loaded into get bashed in the face.

Lale and everyone else on the train gets off at Auschwitz. This isn’t a mere work detail, as he finds out when his and everyone else’s belongings are dumped off the train. From there, he faces the same degradations that every Jew faced in the ever-growing concentration camp, starting with getting the number on their uniforms tattooed on their arms.

Starvation, sleeping in filthy conditions like sardines, and the overall cruelty of the German guards take on even more significance when, while working with a builder on a new barracks, Lale sees trucks full of naked dead bodies, driving towards a plume of black smoke. When he asks the builder, he matter-of-factly says, “They can’t bury the bodies fast enough.”

He’s approached by Pepan (Adam Karst), the man who tattooed him when he entered Auschwitz. He can train him to be a tattooist, which will get him better treatment, better sleeping quarters, and more food. But the tradeoff is that the other camp members will consider him working for the SS. Lale reluctantly agrees, thinking it’s the only way he’s going to survive. His “Block Furher”, Stefan Baretzki (Jonas Nay), is one of the people who haunts Lale’s thoughts sixty years later.

One day, as Lale is tattooing new women inmates, he meets Gita (Anna Próchniak), which is where the love story Lale is telling Heather really begins.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? There have been a number of shows lately that examine how Jews were persecuted by the Nazis; We Were The Lucky Ones and A Small Light immediately come to mind. But we haven’t seen one that actually takes place inside a concentration camp for quite awhile.

Our Take: Jacquelin Perske, Evan Placey and Gabbie Asher adapted Heather Morris’ novel for TV, and they don’t spare the audience any of the horrors of the Holocaust; Jews at Auschwitz and other concentration camps had their humanity stolen from them before they were sent to the gas chambers, and then the bodies were incinerated like common trash. Of all the horrible scenes experienced by Lale during his first weeks and months at Auschwitz, the plumes of black smoke coming from the building where Jewish bodies were disposed of gave us the queasiest feeling.

We did like that the first episode set up the hopelessness of Lale’s situation, where taking a job as a tattooist, and essentially doing work for the SS, is the only way he felt he could survive. It’s the reason why he whispers “I’m sorry” to every new prisoner before applying the ink. It definitely illustrates how unlikely the love story between him and Gita really is. Men and women were separated at Auschwitz; how did the two of them find moments to interact? And how did Gita avoid the gas chamber, for which the Nazis chose people mostly at random at some point. Perhaps she didn’t.

The segments with Keitel and Lynskey are interesting, mainly because we see Keitel as the older Lale continue to be haunted by the horrors. He sees and talks to his younger self, Baretzki, fellow prisooners, and probably Gita. He figures that telling the story might help him in his final years. Keitel does a great job showing the ghosts that constantly haunt Lale. There are events that Lale seems to have more than one version of, not knowing which version is the truth. Lynskey’s role might be a bit more limited, as she sits, listens and asks questions. But the relationship the two of them foster will be at the center of how much Lale opens up about his time at Auschwitz.

Sex and Skin: Lots of depictions of naked, emaciated prisoners.

Parting Shot: After getting her number, Gita weaves her way back through the crowd as Lale watches, then we see the scope of how large Auschwitz is.

Sleeper Star: As we said, Lynskey has the toughest role here. But if anyone can make something out of being fascinated and empathetic, it’s Lynskey.

Most Pilot-y Line: A small point, but Keitel’s version of Lale has an Eastern European accent, while Hauer-King’s younger version has a British accent. Not sure why this inconsistency was allowed to stand.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Tattooist Of Auschwitz shows that there can be a glimmer of hope in even the most horrific situations.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.