For more than half a century, Leil Sokolov kept his terrible secret. Only shortly before his death did he tell what he had been doing in the Auschwitz death camp. His detailed story was recorded by the English journalist Heather Morris. Her book The Tattoo Artist of Auschwitz appeared in Britain in January 2018 and became a bestseller.
Prisoner # 32407
Morris said at the presentation of her book: “To get Layla talking, I had to spend long hours with him, carefully finding a way to his heart and revealing his wounded soul. He was afraid and ashamed of his past. It was felt throughout everything that it was weighing on him, pursuing, tormenting and holding him firmly, not letting go and not allowing him to relax! My interview with him lasted, with some interruptions, for almost three years. I recorded his amazing stories on a dictaphone, and then edited them and accompanied them with my reflections and comments. This is how my book was born."
After a trusting relationship was established between Heather and Leil, he admitted: "I hid what I did during the Second World War, for fear that I would be recognized as a Nazi henchman!"
From Leila's monologues, Mrs. Morris learned that he was born in 1916 into a Jewish family in a small Slovak town. In April 1942, he ended up in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz, completely unaware of the horrors of this cursed place.
French prisoner Jean Pepant, who imprinted their numbers on the forearms of the prisoners, carried out this execution and Leila, who arrived at the camp. He said: “Now you, boy, have no name, no past, no future, no family and friends, but only number - 32407”.
Promotional video:
Under the hood at Mengele
And then a miracle happened that saved Leila's life: the timid young man somehow liked Pepan, and he made him his assistant. Layl turned out to be a smart and talented student - after a couple of weeks he himself, with pinpoint accuracy, branded the newly arrived prisoners, thus removing part of the burden from Pepan.
When he was guilty of something and was sent to the gas chamber, Leil took his place. Since he spoke German, Slovak, Russian, Polish and Hungarian, the Nazis after some time appointed him to the post of the main tattoo artist of Auschwitz. He was given a set of brand new tools and a certificate with the "Political Department" stamp. Leil was well aware that with the receipt of a new position, he was half a step further from death than other prisoners, but any offense could instantly shorten this distance and lead Leil to death. He was especially afraid of Dr. Josef Mengele. Courteous, smiling, intelligent, polite, he daily bypassed the barracks and selected prisoners for his monstrous experiments. Meeting Leila, he nodded to him and said with a Jesuit smile: “Someday I'll take you, my friend!”.
From these words, Sokolov's blood froze in his veins.
In the work of a tattoo artist (as the SS men called Sokolov's position), in addition to the stifling fear of each new day, there were some advantages - he ate in the administration building and received an additional ration, which included butter, sugar, canned food and cigarettes. "I could not refuse this work - otherwise a bullet or a gas chamber was waiting for me!" - Sokolov repeated several times, as if trying to justify himself in front of the journalist sitting opposite.
Death factory
To understand Sokolov's psychology, the origins of his fears, it is necessary to turn to the history of the creation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, which turned into a terrifying death factory.
The idea to drive political prisoners, and then all non-Aryans - Slavs, Gypsies and Jews - into a special camp and organize their mass destruction was first put forward by SS Gruppenfuehrer Erich Bach-Zatevski. During the Great Patriotic War, he was in charge of the Reich's punitive detachments on the territory of the USSR.
The Gruppenführer's assistants quickly found a suitable location near the small Polish town of Auschwitz. They were attracted by two circumstances: firstly, there were already military barracks here, and secondly, an excellent railway connection was established with Auschwitz.
In 1940, Rudolf Hess arrived in the Polish town with the authority to organize the work of the concentration camp. With German pedantry, he examined the settlement and found it quite suitable for organizing the "Death Factory" (as Auschwitz was later called).
Rudolf Hess with great enthusiasm took up a new business for him. The first prisoners were Poles, then - unfortunate people of other nationalities. A year after the organization of the camp, the tradition of tattooing a serial number on the prisoner's hand appeared. It was a kind of tribute to the harsh German order.
The new arrivals were sorted by a group of SS men. The sick, crippled, old and infirm were sent immediately to the gas chambers. Those capable of physical labor were subjected to the humiliating procedure of tattooing and distributed among the barracks.
Just white mice
In early 1945, Jews accounted for ninety percent of the total number of prisoners. The number of guards, torturers, "doctors" and other "specialists" reached six thousand.
It is known that during the war, the "Factory of Death" turned into ashes almost two million people. Monstrous experiments on the prisoners were carried out by a team of "doctors" under the leadership of Josef Mengele.
Another "doctor", Karl Kauberg, was especially cruel. He "gravitated" towards the female sex and experimented mainly on gypsies and Jewish women.
Kauberg's "research" program included the removal of organs, testing new drugs, X-ray irradiation, exposure to cold and boiling water.
Back in the late thirties, he began looking for the most practical way to sterilize women who were not of the Aryan race. So - according to the Fuhrer - it was possible to minimize the reproduction of "subhumans".
Kauberg took the appointment to Auschwitz as a blessing. He began his "experiments" by injecting poisonous solutions into the womb of female prisoners. Subsequently, the organ was removed and taken to the Berlin clinic for a thorough "examination".
Cauberg kept a diary of his experiments and meticulously wrote down everything that happened to his "patients" over the course of many months. Presumably, he sent to the next world and mutilated more than ten thousand women. Proud of his "achievements", he considered himself a great scientist-researcher. His conscience did not torment him, because he considered the experimental prisoners - in full accordance with the fascist theory - just objects of experiments, something like white mice.
Big love
But even in the conditions of the death camp, a sprout of love can appear. This is exactly what happened when the SS man Hans Jodl brought a fragile girl to Leila.
"Give her this number!" - Hans hissed and handed the tattoo artist a piece of paper with the numbers "34902". The prisoner's name was Gita.
With trembling hands, Sokolov put numbers on the girl's forearm, and his imagination drew him pictures of their family happiness: the bank of a clean river, a house in which he and Gita would begin a new, human life. Without the horrors of the camp and the daily fear.
The guard, who sympathized with Leila, passed his notes to Geeta. The lovers even managed to regularly arrange dates behind the barracks.
Layl took care of the girl as best he could, giving her his extra ration. Sokolov managed to get Gita to be transferred to an easier job. At the first opportunity, Leil tried to support his beloved and told her: “We must certainly survive. Do you hear? Survive at any cost!.
So that it never happens again
In 1945, when the Soviet armada was rapidly approaching Auschwitz, the SS began to take prisoners out of the camp. Gita was among them. Leil was very upset about the separation, but did not lose hope for a meeting after the end of the war.
When our troops liberated the prisoners of Auschwitz, Leil returned to his native Slovak town and immediately began searching for Gita. First of all, he went to Bratislava, which was a staging post. It was through this city that many Czech and Slovak concentration camp prisoners returned home. He waited at the station for several weeks until the station master advised him to look for Gita in the Red Cross building. There he met his beloved … A miracle happened.
They got married in October 1945 and began living in socialist Czechoslovakia. Layle opened a very popular fabric store. The prosperity ended when the authorities learned that the Sokolov couple were transferring money to the Foundation for the Creation of the State of Israel. Leila was arrested and his store was nationalized. The couple miraculously managed to escape. They left first for Vienna, then for Paris, where they boarded a ship bound for Australia to Sydney.
There Leil again took up the sale of fabrics and became a thriving businessman. Gita gave birth to a son, Gary. She died of cancer in 2001. Only then did Layle decide to tell a British journalist about his past. His revelations startled her. As, however, and numerous readers.
In their blogs, they admired that the love of Leila and Gita originated in the death camp and went through all the trials.
Israeli journalist Noel Lanzman wrote: "I am sure that the amazing story of the Sokolov couple will help young people who did not survive this nightmare themselves to feel connected with history and do everything so that the horrors of concentration camps will never happen again!"
Vladimir PETROV