Bonnier Books UK responds to Tattooist of Auschwitz backlash

Bonnier Books UK has responded to criticism over the historical accuracy of Heather Morris’ The Tattooist of Auschwitz (Zaffre) following Sky’s new TV adaptation, emphasising that it is “a work of fiction”.   

The New Zealand author’s debut has dominated the bestseller lists since its publication in 2018. It centres on Jewish prisoner Lale Sokolov, who was tasked with tattooing ID numbers on prisoners’ arms in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. It is based on the real lives of Sokolov and his wife, Gita Furman, after Morris spent three years meeting with him before his death. 

An adaptation of the novel from Sky, which premiered earlier this month, has revived criticism over the book’s accuracy. Morris recently described how Holocaust historians carefully reviewed the drama, saying that the mistakes from the book were rectified for the screen adaptation, the Daily Mail has reported. 

However, historians such as Dr Wanda Witek-Malicka, from the research centre of the Auschwitz Memorial, have criticised the portrayal of events in both the adaptation and the book. 

Posting on

(formerly known as Twitter), Witek-Malicka wrotes: “In terms of content, the TV adaptation of The Tattooist of Auschwitz remains much closer to the book than to the factual historical image of the Auschwitz camp. It includes numerous highly improbable scenes. Some of these events are direct replicas of the book’s erroneous content, while others are original ideas of the series’ creators.  

“The series’ portrayal attempts to compromise between two mutually exclusive possibilities—maintaining factual realism while remaining closely linked to the content and message of Heather Morris’ book. Unfortunately, this portrayal, in many cases, distorts, falsifies, or romanticises the reality of Auschwitz to the same extent that Morris’ text does.” 

Bonnier Books UK, which published a TV tie-in of the book this month, told The Bookseller: "Heather Morris’ novel is a work of fiction based on the memory of one man, Lale Sokolov. Heather has not written the story of the Holocaust, but a Holocaust story; Lale’s story, as told to her, as he remembered it in his late eighties.” 

In 2020, Morris was threatened with legal action in the US by the stepson of Cecilia Kovachova, around whom her second novel, Cilka’s Journey (Zaffre), is thought to have been based. 

Morris was unavailable for comment.