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1. How did you feel about Lale when he was
first introduced, as he arrived in Auschwitz? How did your understanding
of him change throughout the novel?
2. What qualities did Lale have that influenced the way he was treated
in the camp? Where did those qualities come from?
3. Survival in the camp depended on people doing deeds of questionable
morality. Lale became the tattooist, but how did Gita’s choices affect
her survival? What about her friend who befriended a Nazi?
4. Inmates in the concentration camp had to make life-or-death decisions
every day. Why did some make the "right" decisions and survive while
others did not?
5. Discuss some of the small acts of humanity carried out by individuals
in The Tattooist of Auschwitz. How did these small acts of
kindness have greater implications? Did it make you reconsider what you
believe to be brave or heroic? Did this make you think differently about
the impact of your own everyday actions?
6. The Tattooist of Auschwitz makes clear that there were also
non-Jewish prisoners in the camp. How did the treatment of Jews differ
from that of non-Jews? How did differences manifest themselves?
7. Had Gita and Lale met in a more conventional way, would they have
developed the same kind of relationship? How did their circumstances
change the course of their romance?
8. In what ways were the relationships between Gita and her friends
different from the usual friendships between teenage girls? In what ways
were they similar?
9. In what ways was Lale a hero? In what ways was he an ordinary man?
10. Lale faced danger even after the camp was liberated. How did his
experiences immediately after liberation prepare him for the rest of his
life?
11. How does The Tattooist of Auschwitz change your perceptions
about the Holocaust in particular, and war in general? What implications
does The Tattooist of Auschwitz hold for our own time?
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