So I went and had a look at Heather Morris' biography and quite honestly she has zero excuses for any historical inaccuracies. Turns out she worked at Monash University, as a social work in the medical centre, for 20 odd years. Hilariously, I probably saw her because I attended and completed my degree at Monash while she was still working there. My degree in history, that focused on holocaust and genocide, because Monash University has 1 a great school of history but 2 has a whole centre on holocaust studies. It's not like she had no idea where to even start. She had an entire University with all its resources right there. There are professors at Monash who have done decades of study on how survivors remember, what they choose to share, how they share it. The Holocaust museum in Melbourne is not far from one of the Monash campuses. Like it is genuinely baffling that either she or the publishers weren't like "guess we might just give those eminent professors at YOUR PLACE OF WORK a call to see if they can help us with some fact checking".
Maybe this also shows how huge and disconnected universities are? Someone can work in one and still not realise these resources are right there or feel like they’re not the right sort of person to access them!
@MimiMortmain yeah I'm not sure. She did her degree at Monash, too. I would imagine she had some connection to the Jewish community in Melbourne, I can't find much detail on how she met Lali, other than through his son, but why would her son pick out the random social worker at Monash without some connection? But I am guessing they lived nearby and if so, I dont know how you wouldn't be aware of all the research and at least have been to the museum. Just in a physical sense, the community is very close. It also speaks to a total lack of curiosity as to the broader context of Lali's story though, which for a writer, is not great.
@@MimiMortmain not vouching for Morris, but i can definitely verify this. i'm a librarian at a medium-sized university, and there's plenty of students and faculty who aren't aware of what sorts of resources we offer. but i do agree with the original commenter, that if she had gotten her degree at this university _and_ worked there for over 20 years, she likely would have gone to the library at least once. she should have been able to get in contact with librarians who could help her (or even if the librarians themselves weren't equipped for it, they should at least be able to redirect her to people who could).
People's memories can be SO mistaken. This is well known, so I think Morris should have taken MUCH more care to corroborate facts. Disappointing. Book should be labelled as outright fiction 'inspired by'... NOT 'based on'.
@@MimiMortmain they will but someone needs to ask them lol it's not like academia just knows someone will write a book. a lot of history advisors are always ignored on film set
@MimiMortmain I think academics are very busy trying to retain their funding, undertake their research, and teach. They don't have time to be seeking out fiction writers to explain any of the readily available historical documentation on Auschwitz. That said, having studied the holocaust for 4 years at university in Melbourne, had Morris reached out to any of the professors and researchers I studied with, I am very sure they would have provided advice where they could.
It is apparently. My copy has a bit of text on the copyright page explaining that everything in the book is fiction and based on the authors imagination
My immediate thought on this is a line from a memoir where a freed prisoner was being tended to by an allied nurse and he just reflected on “I hadn’t seen a woman in years”
@ I think you can see that most clearly with the way he gave his wife the "wrong" number. He must have known it, he probably really didn't want to say it, because he had to physically keep it together for the interviewer. He may also have literally 'forgotten' it; the brain will do this naturally to protect itself from traumatic thoughts. The TV series, perhaps unlike the book, was able to get that across more.
The only thing I've seen which could be considered "Holocaust romance" if you squinted hard enough which had any redeeming qualities would be Martin Sherman's play "Bent," which is about the persecution of gay men under Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code. The tone of the play is unrelentingly bleak: the action begins on The Night of the Long Knives, when the events crash into the appartment and lives of boyfriends Max and Rudy. After an attenpt to flee they get caught and put on the train to Dachau, where the guards force Max to beat Rudy to death. Max meets Horst, a gay prisoner who explains the pecking order among camp inmates, with those bearing the pink triangle at the very bottom, and that prompts Max to lie to the guards and claims to be Jewish: it is later revealed that the guards made him do some truly unspeakable things to disprove his homosexuality. Inside the camp Max and Horst become friends and eventually lovers, and Max slowly loses the shame he always felt around being gay. After Horst is shot by camp guards Max puts on his jacket, claiming the pink triangle and reclaiming his identity as a gay man, before grabbing the electric fence. In this case setting a love story in a concentration camp works because it's a story about people who were persecuted and sent to the camps specifically because of how and who they loved. There is no spot of happy ending, no love conquering all, and no survivors. The love story serves to further darken the tragedy, not to lighten it.
@beeburn0 The film is more accessible, and spends a longer time establishing the LGBT culture of Berlin before the events of the play take hold and wipe it out. I made the mistake of reading the play and watching the film within the same 12 hour span, and let me tell you the ending gutted me just as hard the second time as it did the first.
I remember when I read Tattooist. I think I was around eleven or twelve, and I recall finding it quite sweet (for lack of a better term); I thought it was nice that someone's story could be told like this, and that they had the agency to have it presented how they wanted and through their own perception. Some parts of the book -- like what Cilka went through, for example -- completely flew over my head, and I never wound up properly researching it (twelve-year-old me was a history nerd, but not THAT much of a history nerd) and so didn't clock some of the inaccuracies. It struck me as odd how much freedom Lali seemed to have, all things considered, but the part that always threw me off the most was how it was advertised. I picked it up in the romance section of my school library, and the librarian recommended it with that same emphasis. I understand that it's a love story, and I understand that that's how Lali wanted it to be told, but it will never not be odd to me that it seemed so comfortable in framing it as "they loved each other and their love saved them". Their love didn't save them. Love didn't save anybody, because it was a genocide, and brushing that away to focus on them snogging is just strange in my opinion. Anyway, there's my two cents. This was a really interesting video, thank you for taking the time to write/record/edit/post it! I hadn't thought about this book in a good few years, so thank you for giving me means to pause and consider the whole thing again :]
This feels like a sub-genre of “inspiration porn”, & I used to have nothing but disgust for that. It makes me so uncomfortable but, Lali can’t help but romanticise his traumatic past, so maybe it’s only natural that people are endlessly tempted to simplify, sanitise & romanticise history too. While this is so frustrating & uncomfortable, I think it’s really interesting. Basically, I’m glad the story exists, just so you could review it & we could talk about the icky temptation for trauma to transform our past. Lali’s fixation on his romance reminds me of how some people insist all terrible things “happen for a reason” (🤢). It’s easier to accept things that way. I think some people refuse to engage with an idea unLESS they can stick some meaning or silver lining to it- I bet that’s what this genre is really about. This isn’t close to the same thing but, when I had cancer (in remission now), multiple people tried to tell me I got sick “for a reason” & I would learn something from it or something. Sure, you can find a lesson in any experience! But suffering isn’t *for* that. Suffering isn’t *for* anything. It just happens. I found many people were more uncomfortable with my being sick than I was. They didn’t want to talk about it unless they could find a silver lining in it. They just couldn’t make sense of something so senseless & scary. (Like bro, it’s just a couple tumours chill.) Our temptation to twist things like that, to make horrible things fluffy, is just about fear. We don’t like thinking about horrible things as they are & it’s really hard for some people to reconcile that those things happen to good people & for no reason. Their minds get to work shifting memories around, emphasising some over others & attributing meaning where there is none; all to make them feel more in control & less afraid. There is a horror in knowing there is no greater order to keep horror from finding you. That’s why so many believe in a God, I think. It must be comforting to believe there’s a plan & anything bad which happens is for a reason. For those of us who don’t believe & who don’t think like that ^ as much, it’s just really uncomfortable (& even triggering) to feel like such serious matters are being romanticised, trivialised & exploited… & how frustrating when even survivors seem to be a part of that process.
11:42 - that is exactly what the most tragic part of this is. Memories like this are precious and delicate and need to be handled by actual professionals. We could've had an accurate recounting of Lali's story.
A lot of literary works by death camp survivors explore survivor's guilt and morality, the things the authors did to survive and how they grapple with them even years after. With this context, I really think leaving out some events for the sake of having a more heroic and palatable portrait of Lali was a poor choice. Not gonna lie, it worries me that those more sanitised portrayals of Holocaust are overtaking the general consciousness. In Polish curriculum, there is a substantial number of works written by survivors discussed in high school literature classes. Those works are very difficult to read, but that is the point - it feels scary to me that this is not the norm, and that many people are getting their understanding of those horrific events from romance novels instead of actual unfiltered accounts.
It is insane to me how this history is tokenised for some things like this. Less specifically this one because of the tie to Lali but more broadly the lack of thought behind lots in this genre is mind blowing.
Honestly I think the misstep from the beginning was not consulting a memorial museum or foundation before publishing. Yes it’s a personal testimony but those organizations also have other testimonies to corroborate it against. It probably wouldn’t have fixed all the issues but it would’ve helped avoid the simple ones like the number inaccuracies. As a Jew idk how to feel about these kinds of historical fiction books and movies and what not, as some are clearly made with genuine heart while others are using the Holocaust as a shock value point or to up the steaks of a story. Overall I think it’s just a case by case basis, complex in of itself like the real world tragedy
I think it does say a lot that Holocaust stories do so well, but people don’t know a lot of the basics. I feel like a lot of people haven’t engaged with the history and have a very shallow view of what happened. Ignorance is unfortunately very marketable, which just repeats the cycle.
I kept seeing adverts for the film, before it's release, and i immediately clocked it at oscar bait. There's always at least 1 holocaust story in the running. I wish auschwitz wasn't seen as some kind of literay vehicle to sell books. I've been to the camps and the idea of basing a romance feels...wrong Edit: sorry, it was a TV show not a movie. It felt so much like award bait to me
I think the last Holocaust movie i saw that actually focused on the horror and tragedy of it was "Bent." It is kind of a love story, but mainly because it's about the persecution of gay men under Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code. The first scene of both the movie and the play it's based on takes place on The Night of the Long Knives, when it becomes violently clear that the laissez-faire attotuyde of the Weimar era was over. The film ends with the main character, who poses as a Jew while in the camp to avoid the abuse gay prisoners got both from guards and from other inmates, putting on his dead boyfriend's jacket, claiming the pink triangle as his own and reclaiming his identity as a gay man, before he grabs the electrified fence. That's how you do it. It's not a romance story with the Holocaust as set dressing. Its actively a story about the Holocaust, with a doomed love story to further highlight the tragedy of the whole thing. Love doesn't conquer all, and if there is a victory it's a miniscule personal victory that makes the tragedy feel even more profound. It leaves you despondent.
This issue concerns me especially as a German. While I find it acceptable to write a romance in order to educate the readers about the very real horrors of the past, I consider focusing on the romance part of the story including the alleged consummation whilst disregarding some very important historical facts and leaving the industrial m*rder only implied is disinformational fiction and of very poor taste! That being said, I agree with you in many points. PS: I am only censoring my language so that Yt doesn't delete my comment, which has happened numerous times before :(
I want to study Holocaust denial, and incorrect details, contradictions, and misunderstandings make it so scary because deniers use this for their agenda
I was just thinking about this! I go to charity shops for books a lot and the sheer amount of Auschwitz themed romances (often quite badly written, too) made me reel… I kinda get that it’s ‘inspirational’ in a screwed up way but it always gives me a ‘are the straights OK’ moment 😅 That said I did read a romance novel set in Nazi Germany where the author admitted she did no real research aside from reading Mein Kampf… yeah, needless to say it was awful…
I genuinely can not comprehend this being a problem. I believe you, but I just never could have come up with that combination on my own, much less it being too common…
I’m pleasantly surprised to leave this video a more nuanced view. I’ve found it really hard to engage with a lot of historical fiction since I got back into reading, especially works that pull fragments from the archive to ostensibly give a voice to a person without one but essentially speaks for them (I even found Hamnet a bit disquieting for that reason). It’s honestly surprising to find out the book/tv show did honour much of Lali’s testimony. I think the metafiction aspect is interesting and I’d be interested to read an ‘annotated’ version of the book with those historical corrections/clarifications added and call attention to that disconnect rather than obscure it through fictionalisation. A book I found interesting recently was I Am Not Your Eve by Devika Ponnambalam, which centres one of Gauguin’s victims (Teha’amana) but ends with emphasising how little we know about her and her actual inner world, and also touches upon the fact Tahitian oral histories about her aren’t for the world to know. It was refreshing to have a historical fiction call attention to it imo
I feel like this type of “genre” has been popular for quite some time too. Summer of my German Soldier by Bette Greene came out in 1973 and it’s about a young American Jewish girl who finds a German soldier (he’s a POW) near her home. She helps him out, hides him, brings him food when she can and they have some sort of love story. It was a very popular book and I think a lot of schools even required it for reading and there was a movie made too!
You remind me of my supervisors asking me to define my genres 😅 There is definitely a longer history of these sorts of books, but I think the newest iteration stands out because of the ‘based on a true’ story aspect which leads to the expectation of factual content (whether they can actually achieve that is another matter!)
They take the superficial setting because it gets people interested and and then whitewash actual historical tragedies to make it more digestible because you don't want the reader to feel TOO bad about themselves. It's actually a scarily common tactic.
@@magiv4205+ This. Most of this is extremely malicious; general education is under attack because of these tactics. I fear for the education of later generations. . .
I hate that Holocaust romance is even a trope/phrase, let alone how popular it is and that it always seems to be written by non-Jews who don't even take it seriously enough to properly research.
Im APPALED! I feel like acknowledging that Nazis were bad should be the easiest way to reach common ground. Instead, people are "Gone with the Wind-ing" the tragedy and getting away with it?! I just want to puke.
A memoir would've been a much more respectful way of sharing Lali's story, instead of turning it into a romance novel. For all that Lali was happy with it, the sheer volume of the inaccuracies were downright insulting to fellow survivors and their families.
When i was working in a charity shop last year it really suprised me how many 'Holocaust love story' books there always were. Something about them really rubbed me the wrong way - so thank you for articulating all the issues so clearly! Great video
I think it's perfectly fine for a story to exist which is about memory rather than history. It can then serve as a commentary on how people process trauma and how that changes the way they remember events. However, I think the issue here was that marketing presented this a factual documentation of events and that readers weren't aware that there were innaccuracies in the novel. it would've benefitted from a preface outlining how the book differs from real history and that this is above all historical FICTION even if inspired by a true story I was pleasantly surprised to see such a well researched and nuanced video from such a small channel! I'm looking forward to the sequel to this video
Something that horrifies me is knowing were one of the last generations that will learn from survivors. I never knew my grandmother, but her experiences in one of the japanese camps have always heavily affected my family and its something that ive known about since i was very young. Ive had survivors speak to my class when i was in elementary, so around 8 years old. Ive known survivors, and seen their trauma first hand. Im horrified by the idea that future generations will never have that perspective. I feel like people are already starting to forget.
"There was nothing to fix" is a very bold and stupid thing to say when being criticised for changing things in your dramatisation of _someone else's_ story...
It's also a major misunderstanding of how historic knowledge works, it's like science in that it's never fully set in stone, new evidence or connections that change our understanding of events can be found at any moment even with a subject as highly studied as this.
human memory can be extremely unreliable, especially when related to traumatic experiences. i always think about "inside the book depository" these days when thinking about first hand testimony, it's a documentary right here on youtube about the jfk assassination focused on what was happening inside the book depository the shots were fired from. so many witness testimonies conflict, in ways that are clearly not malicious, but simply, human. leaving the window seconds vs minutes after, what they could see vs what they imagined seeing. and i think that's always important to keep in mind, not to doubt or discredit what people say, but to simply remember, that the human brain is not a camera, and it can warp and change over even mere hours and days, never mind DECADES. the brain also has a tendency to couch traumatic memories in whatever softness or romance it can, that's one of the reasons people often go back to their abusers, because in their mind, it "wasn't that bad" because their brain is attempting to protect them, it's not at all unbelievable to think that lali's memories of his time have largely been smoothed over in his recollection, with clarity given to his moments with gita, because those were the moments that were not horrifically traumatic for him. in conclusion always take witness statements with a grain of salt, and corroborating details with historical record is i think the best way to go about this sort of writing (though heather morris clearly did not do quite as good a job at that as she should have) also i think if lali wanted it told as a love story, that's his right to request. i do think survivors should be allowed to take back their narratives in that way if they so choose, if that is how they want to use their voices, they should be allowed that. (though i know not every book in this sub-genre is a result of testimony from people who wanted their stories told this way, and THOSE i think are, a little more of a yikes. it's one thing to recount a true story the way the person telling it wanted it told, it's another to, completely invent a love story and set it in one of the most horrific events in human history, which still exists in living memory.)
The concerning issue is the proliferation of these fabrications. But wait, I should probably read The Astronaut of Auschwitz before making a harsh conclusion.
Thank you for making this Mimi! I for one can’t wait to hear about Cilka’s Journey. This was my first Heather Morrison book, then I found out about the inaccuracies. I can’t wait to learn more!
“If people want to quibble, fine” whattt? She’s a writer and that’s the best she could do? You wrote this story like they were teenagers in detention who had to sneak out at night. A rec center and free time? It was a death camp. That’s not a quibble.
I know im just a rando on the internet saying this, but my Creative Writing lecturer met Heather Morris when he worked at a publishing company, said she was flexing the luxury that the book had given her. Went on a whole rant about it during one of our lectures. If true, definitely reflects badly on her.
This video unlocked a deeply buried memory of mine. So theres this Canadian cartoon, Total Drama Island, which i LOVED as a teenager, and early on in the fandom another teenager (14) decided to write a Holocaust romance fanfic. This fic dropped in 2009 and has never been taken down. You can still read it all. The author has since added an authors note saying they dont regret writing the story and would like to rewrite and publish it. Every time i see some distasteful romance story between a Nazi and a Holocaust victim, I'll wonder if edwardandbella4eva wrote it.
@@daytonmorehead7330It would take a while to explain, but long story short; she was manipulative and spread rumors and just overall really fucking shitty. I would do some research if I were you
@@daytonmorehead7330 It's a pretty long story but it basically boils down to this: Illuminaughtii wrongfully called LeagleEagle out for plagiarism and then got handed the receipts because it was actually her that plagiarized other people's content for her videos. Then other people started to call her out for other stuff too, like emotionally and financially abusing her friends and partners and just being a bad person in general. It all ended in a legal battle with Oz Media and now her channel is dead. There are tons of videos talking about this, it's insane.
@@daytonmorehead7330a lot. the primary stuff was plagiarism in her videos, and just kind of being awful to other RUclipsrs in general, accusing one of supporting a p3do, and engaging in abusive behavior that drove someone to a mental health crisis and then posted their suicide notes in her ‘apology’ video. there were also other claims of abuse from people she worked and live with but it’s quite a rabbit hole as you can imagine
Fantastic video- and you hit such a niche of topics I'm very interested in, so I am subbed and looking forward to more! I have a similar focus on the differences in fact v fiction surrounding traumatic events (though I tend to focus more on memorials and museums) but I find myself centering my focus on how someone who isn't very well informed would view the work. To caveat- I think the Auschwitz museum and the researcher's denunciation of the Tattooist is completely correct and is doing exactly what should be done as a historian and a voice for that museum and those people's history. But the thought I always wind up with at the end is exactly the reality you laid out at 18:04- more people will consume a dramatized version of a traumatic event like the holocaust than an academic text about it. What is the point of raising awareness of these stories? While it is to me undeniable that the most accurate version of events should be recorded for the sake of preservation, is that why education exists around these traumatic topics? I don't think it is. We shouldn't be taught about the Holocaust in order to most accurately memorize its events to the best of society's ability but for the purpose of doing all we can to ensure nothing like it ever happens again. To that end, a dramatized, (sometimes fictionalized) narrative- sadly- is I think a much better way of teaching empathy to general society. There is of course a line. I haven't read or watched Tattooist yet and I'm not an expert nor personally have any testimony related to the Holocaust so I don't think I'm at liberty to say where that line is (but I am fairly confident the Boy in the Striped Pajamas is over that line).
discovered your channel today and i’m obsessed. youtube seems to be going downhill but your videos harken the days of well made video essays. keep it up!
i do have to respect heather morris for attempting to portray lali’s story as he had wanted; the novel or tv show wouldn’t even exist without lali’s testimony in the first place. i think the publishing team really dropped the ball when trying to market the book as objective truth versus an account of subjective memories. a lot more of the historical inaccuracies could be excused if they had gone a different route during the marketing. if lali had told morris something that was not entirely factual according to the more objective evidence we have available, it can easily and understandably be lali trying to make sense of a really traumatic time in his life and having flaws and gaps in his memory. also an appendix at the end going into more depth about specific inaccuracies along side the more objective evidence available wouldn’t hurt either towards portraying a more realized account of the Holocaust
honestly, i came into this video expecting you to say something really stupid, as a lot of people on youtube would do with this sort of video. i was honestly shocked by how fair you were, in that some of the stupider things were clearly the opinions of other that needed to be covered to demonstrate reactions to the book, and in that the few times you cast judgement were reasonable. really good video, more people should strive to be like you and make work like your work
As Witek-Malicka's compatriot I would just like to point out that her name is pronounced differently (more like 'Vanda 'Vitek-Ma'litska(first 2 syllables like in "malice"). Mordowicz (a Polish Jew born in a town in the same district as Warsaw) is pronounced like Mord(like Tolkien's Mordor)'owitsh (last sound is [tʃ]), not Mordowitz. Pszczyna is said like Pshchyna, but it's understandable, I don't think anyone who doesn't speak Polish would get it right. However, these are minor things, and I appreciate you took up this subject. Best wishes from Poland
Thank you for clarifying! I looked up the pronunciations before, but I’m not sure how accurate they were and it will probably always sound a bit funny to a native speaker when I say it because we all have our different accents 💜
@MimiMortmain unfortunately we still don't have all the tools we need at our disposal, I would love more pronounciation guides haha. But still, it's very respectful of you to look it up, it's always better than not trying at all. Also it was not that bad for a foreigner 💚
not sure I have much to add to the conversation, so-Wow, you deserve a lot more subscribers! Your consideration of the topic really shines through and was super informative, plus you’ve got a nice voice and a nice presentation!
I discovered your channel 3 hours ago, and you posted a video 1 hour ago. Thank you, recommendations, but also what the heck. I am both intrigued and horrified for what is soon to come.
Dr Kirril Shields, one of the authors from the paper from the University of Queensland, is actually one of my teachers there in a literature class! He's a great guy, very engaging, and it was so crazy seeing his name pop up here!
I actual have this book and have read it, and I must say I completely agree with everything you say. Even while reading this book I felt it was ment to be a spectacle more than anything. While I did think it was well written, I definitely don’t think it makes a good historical retelling of someone’s story. And I’m glad so many other people share this feeling because I had know idea about any controversy when I’d bought this book. But even then I read it with the understanding that theses events where not ment to be taken as historic, and more importantly that this book was not a good representation of the complicated relationships and situations people in the camp found themselves in. And I feel this idea was cemented because at the same time for school I was required to read another book about the Holocaust (Tattooist was a personal read ) When The World Was Our, which still takes creative liberties but I feel tells a better story using real people’s history far better than the tattooists, I really hope this makes sense lmao I don’t normally comment on videos but I absolutely loved this one!
I’ve skimmed this out of morbid curiosity. Long story short, it’s horrible. However at the end of the day it’s just a sigh that time marches on. We’re on the edge of WWII being out of living memory ( which is crazy and very sad because that means Grandpa Lou from Rugrats is probably no longer with us). The Holocaust at the end of the day is just another one of histories sad tales of man’s barbarism towards man. It’s unthinkable to us to make up a sappy trashy romance novel but, we gladly make heroes out of Spartans and Romans who did the same type of stuff. When we’re all dead this will be even more palatable. Which stinks but it’s just time’s arrow.
Very true, we only have about a decade or two left of living memory. Academically I find how collective memory changes over time very interesting but I do wonder what these changes will mean…
Memoirs with historical accuracy notes or psychological notes would be the best way to preserve these first person accounts. This current trend is iffy to say the least. If it's historical fiction, there is still an expectation from the audience of historical accuracy, and a lack of it is just the past being romanticized at best. Considering that the romance genre is meant to end a book in happily together forever or for now... Either being the end feels disingenuous for a book about such a time, though I could forgive it if it was about people who did survive together or were separated and then reunited when the war ended. But if it's the middle of the war when the book ends and it's about death camps, then it feels wrong to even do happily for now.
great video ! have you heard of the book heavyweight by solomon j brager? it’s a graphic memoir abt family history that includes various family members holocaust testimony but it also has a really excellent grasp of like historicity, the importance of contextualising b & sometimes the frustrations of dealing with survivor testimony - when they leave gaps, misrepresent things, make mistakes etc !! wld rly recommend it bc i feel like it does some of what the show adds in but in an even more (imo) accurate, conscientious way. anyway thanks again for an educational video !
It should have been published before Lali died. Reminds me of the book my grandma never finished. Ahe also changed details on purpose, to make it less sad and tragic. I argued she should write it raw, but she disagreed.
I am from Germany and our whole grade once visited a concentration camp nearby. The things we heard and saw there felt so different in comparison to just reading about them in school. It felt really heavy to be there, a place where many people had died. Especially because we had a survivor coming to our school every year talking to a higher grade (10th grade I think). If someone escaped the other prisoners would have to wait for hours on end while remaining in a standing position (I believe it was 24 straight hours). The guards firing their guns at random seems odd, because they were constantly searching for cheaper, faster and more effective ways to get rid of the prisoners
concept: series of romance novels that take place around other various tragedies. do you think a 9/11 romance would be better or worse recieved than a holocaust one? just kidding it probably would be borderline banned in america
I don't know about romance novels specifically, but there's plenty of insensitive 9/11 media. And people didn't even wait for COVID lock-downs to end before writing romance novels about it. It may be cringe, but this is clearly one of those aspects of human nature that's pretty widespread.
Wow, thats a tough one. I've read this book and both its sequels and actually liked them. I remember being somewhat irritated by the first one, because it seemed a little too focussed on the relationship between Gita and Lali and everything appeared to be "too smooth" (in a way that basically all plans turned out and there where no major setbacks) but I thought I had really learned a lot with the second book as it is (mainly) about the time after the concentration camps when Cilka is deported to Siberia. Is the thrid book (The three sisters) as bad as the first two?
They’re effectively written books - that’s why they’re so popular! The problem with Cilka’s Journey is that it appears to have gotten some really major things wrong, but The Three Sisters is the best of the bunch I would say. The writing improved so much in it and I think it helped that Heather Morris could talk to the survivors while she was working on the book. That said, it still has the same tone as her previous books…
Thank you for this video, I started reading this book when I was 13/14 and at the time, didn't understand the harm in the historical accuracies - much like when I read and watched 'The Boy In The Striped Pajamas' all those years ago. I'm now 19 and a lot more educated in Holocaust history, and German in general during that time. I'm wondering if you'll ever make a video discussing John Boyne's book "The Boy At The Top Of The Mountain"? Boyne's less well known WW2 book for younger readers, when I was 11/12 I really liked it as it seemed (to me, at the time) somewhat more realistic than TBITSP. I just don't see anyone talking about that book and would love to know what you think about it. As I very much enjoyed your other videos discussing his books I used to be a big fan of John Boyne but in recent years, for obvious reasons, my opinion has shifted. I also didn't know The Tattooist had been turned into a tv show at all, I might give it a watch rather than finish reading the book.
As someone who has read a lot of "Primo Levi" and other first hand accounts of the holocaust, as well as having the privilege of meeting some survivors, the tone of "the tattooist of auswitch" struck me as extremely strange. I can't stress enough. It's a miracle anyone survived these camps. They were freezing, starving, ill, all while being forced to undergo hard labour. The cruelty is unimaginable.
I'm going to say something pretty unpopular; I didn't think Lali came across the best even with all t left out about him later. So, I'm not totally shocked by any of this.
Weather the story was real or fiction is irrelevant to what I got from it. That the Nazi collaborators weren't traitors, Rather just people trying to survive..
Hi!! Could you please make a video on the inaccuracies of the movie 'A White Bird'? Because I just recently watched it and I love the movie, but I really want to know about the actual history 🫶🏾🫶🏾🫶🏾 Thank you so much in advance if you choose to do so!!!!
Some of those books you show [for example, the Dressmakers of Auschwitz] are factual accounts and not novels. They are likely marketed with the same intent as Tattoist [although there are so many Profession of Camp stories now people don't really know where it comes from].
I read this book quite a while ago, didn't find it to be very good and forgot most it (althoughi wasn'texpectingit to be a romance book), seems like that was for the best, one of the main thing i remember was how little character Gita had lol... I'd be interested in a similar video about the Cilka book.
I'd be interested to see your take on another Australian author's holocaust book series. It's called the 'Once' series by Morris Gleitzman and follows a grandfather recounting his experience as a jewish child during the holocaust, and then later his experience moving to Australia, as well as his granddaughter's experience in modern day Australia. I've only ever heard good things about it, so maybe a good candidate for a: this is how you do a holocaust novel? Either way, I'd love to see your thoughts
I haven't watched this yet but I went and got my copy when I saw this video come on my feed and I wanted to comment this while I still had it with me. The back of the book where there's a little biography about the author says "In 2003, she was introduced to Lale Sokolov, who entrusted her with the innermost details of his life during the Holocaust" however the page with the copyright info reads "This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialog are drawn from the authors imagination and are not to be construed as real" what the absolute fuck? The dedication says "To the memory of Lale Sokolov. Thank you for trusting me to tell your and Gita's story" how is is their story if everything is fictitious??? I never noticed that page bc I skip the copyright page. I spent years thinking this was a real story, that everything in the book really happened to Lale but it's all fake?? How can it be fake if she claims he trusted her with info on what happened to him and his story?? And the way that bit about it being fiction was snuck onto a page no one would bother looking at.. what a mess
I have a rule of thumb: if the first time I hear about a "concerning trend" is someone _complaining_ about it, then I don't actually need to be concerned.
I read the book long ago, and when I saw the series, I went down a rabbit hole of official records. On the site of the Shoah Foundation, I saw the interviews of both Lale and his wife (Gisela). It was filmed long before the author had her interviews with Lale. With all due respect to being a survivor, it's the weirdest account of events I've seen. "Big fish" energy... He REALLY said that the Nazi guard was like a brother to him. The problems of the books start from the source, and it's a shame :( but people come on many hummm... levels of "truth adorning storytelling"? I don't know how to put it.
Maybe the other "accounts" weren't exactly truthful about the camps, The eagle and bear cage, the electric water room that disintegrates you or the shotgun that you put into a wall that curves around and shoots you in the face. All official published claims from the 40s.
Yes to rabbit holes down official records 👏 I think what we have to remember is that surviving was not the typical experience tragically, especially for those who were taken there in 1942, and the reasons for surviving might be personality traits that we would now find surprising. Baretzki (the guard) was also a peculiar person - he testified against his former superiors, so he was a pyscho but not one with any particular loyalties
If you want real context for why this genre is acceptable, and why anyone would want to read the love story of people under the circumstances of being marked for industrial m urder, People Love Dea d Jews by Dara Horn is about the world's obsession with viewing the deaths of Jewish people as a moral lesson, a thing that Needs to Happen, something inevitable. Its why our genoc1de is so often the backdrop for white ppls stories about being Saviours and falling in love amongst the death.
Hi Mimi. I love your videos, been watching for a while (really liked the Stripped Pajamas video)! I was just wondering, have you watched “Bent”(1997) based in the 1979 play of the same name? It’s another holocaust story and I was wondering what you thought of it. It’s rather bleak but also controversial. It feels a bit exploitative imo.
This is why I hate booktoks like this and only enjoy comics, and manga. Adults have very poor taste in entertainment. They also assume us teens are only interested in these types of books.
I’m not always a fan of a lot of tiktok books too, but there are so many others out there instead! Maybe try some classics or even some new releases in the same genre as the comics/manga you like and see if there is anything you end up liking? 😊📚
I remember trying to read the tattooist of Auschwitz’s but being unable to really get in to it where in comparison I’ve read Corrie Ten boom’s autobiographical book the hiding place dozens of times and elie wiesel’s memoir Night at least twice I think a lot of it just had to do with how more real those felt in comparison
So I went and had a look at Heather Morris' biography and quite honestly she has zero excuses for any historical inaccuracies. Turns out she worked at Monash University, as a social work in the medical centre, for 20 odd years. Hilariously, I probably saw her because I attended and completed my degree at Monash while she was still working there. My degree in history, that focused on holocaust and genocide, because Monash University has 1 a great school of history but 2 has a whole centre on holocaust studies. It's not like she had no idea where to even start. She had an entire University with all its resources right there. There are professors at Monash who have done decades of study on how survivors remember, what they choose to share, how they share it. The Holocaust museum in Melbourne is not far from one of the Monash campuses. Like it is genuinely baffling that either she or the publishers weren't like "guess we might just give those eminent professors at YOUR PLACE OF WORK a call to see if they can help us with some fact checking".
Maybe this also shows how huge and disconnected universities are? Someone can work in one and still not realise these resources are right there or feel like they’re not the right sort of person to access them!
@MimiMortmain yeah I'm not sure. She did her degree at Monash, too. I would imagine she had some connection to the Jewish community in Melbourne, I can't find much detail on how she met Lali, other than through his son, but why would her son pick out the random social worker at Monash without some connection? But I am guessing they lived nearby and if so, I dont know how you wouldn't be aware of all the research and at least have been to the museum. Just in a physical sense, the community is very close. It also speaks to a total lack of curiosity as to the broader context of Lali's story though, which for a writer, is not great.
@@MimiMortmain not vouching for Morris, but i can definitely verify this. i'm a librarian at a medium-sized university, and there's plenty of students and faculty who aren't aware of what sorts of resources we offer. but i do agree with the original commenter, that if she had gotten her degree at this university _and_ worked there for over 20 years, she likely would have gone to the library at least once. she should have been able to get in contact with librarians who could help her (or even if the librarians themselves weren't equipped for it, they should at least be able to redirect her to people who could).
This failure on key details is so bad because it so easily can be used to fuel the beliefs of Holocaust deniers 😢
Exactly.
The nonexistent rec area is especially heinous, since these types of things are at the center of many false claims about the camps’ “true” purpose.
@@SP4D3-s69 I’ve unfortunately also heard people use that talking point before…
They will do that no matter what. If anything, this will make it easier for people without the proper education to believe their lies.
Luckily they are harmless and we can all ignore them
People's memories can be SO mistaken. This is well known, so I think Morris should have taken MUCH more care to corroborate facts. Disappointing. Book should be labelled as outright fiction 'inspired by'... NOT 'based on'.
tbf I think there is a lot more that academia and the heritage sector could do to support historical fiction writers!
@@MimiMortmain they will but someone needs to ask them lol it's not like academia just knows someone will write a book. a lot of history advisors are always ignored on film set
@MimiMortmain I think academics are very busy trying to retain their funding, undertake their research, and teach. They don't have time to be seeking out fiction writers to explain any of the readily available historical documentation on Auschwitz. That said, having studied the holocaust for 4 years at university in Melbourne, had Morris reached out to any of the professors and researchers I studied with, I am very sure they would have provided advice where they could.
It is apparently. My copy has a bit of text on the copyright page explaining that everything in the book is fiction and based on the authors imagination
My immediate thought on this is a line from a memoir where a freed prisoner was being tended to by an allied nurse and he just reflected on “I hadn’t seen a woman in years”
Exactly!
It's difficult to handle those types of memories, it's a known psychological technique to misremember and romanticize.
absolutely 💔
@ I think you can see that most clearly with the way he gave his wife the "wrong" number. He must have known it, he probably really didn't want to say it, because he had to physically keep it together for the interviewer. He may also have literally 'forgotten' it; the brain will do this naturally to protect itself from traumatic thoughts. The TV series, perhaps unlike the book, was able to get that across more.
Men don't remember numbers
The only thing I've seen which could be considered "Holocaust romance" if you squinted hard enough which had any redeeming qualities would be Martin Sherman's play "Bent," which is about the persecution of gay men under Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code. The tone of the play is unrelentingly bleak: the action begins on The Night of the Long Knives, when the events crash into the appartment and lives of boyfriends Max and Rudy. After an attenpt to flee they get caught and put on the train to Dachau, where the guards force Max to beat Rudy to death. Max meets Horst, a gay prisoner who explains the pecking order among camp inmates, with those bearing the pink triangle at the very bottom, and that prompts Max to lie to the guards and claims to be Jewish: it is later revealed that the guards made him do some truly unspeakable things to disprove his homosexuality. Inside the camp Max and Horst become friends and eventually lovers, and Max slowly loses the shame he always felt around being gay. After Horst is shot by camp guards Max puts on his jacket, claiming the pink triangle and reclaiming his identity as a gay man, before grabbing the electric fence.
In this case setting a love story in a concentration camp works because it's a story about people who were persecuted and sent to the camps specifically because of how and who they loved. There is no spot of happy ending, no love conquering all, and no survivors. The love story serves to further darken the tragedy, not to lighten it.
I think I'll check it out! Should I watch the movie or the play?
@beeburn0 The film is more accessible, and spends a longer time establishing the LGBT culture of Berlin before the events of the play take hold and wipe it out. I made the mistake of reading the play and watching the film within the same 12 hour span, and let me tell you the ending gutted me just as hard the second time as it did the first.
I remember when I read Tattooist. I think I was around eleven or twelve, and I recall finding it quite sweet (for lack of a better term); I thought it was nice that someone's story could be told like this, and that they had the agency to have it presented how they wanted and through their own perception. Some parts of the book -- like what Cilka went through, for example -- completely flew over my head, and I never wound up properly researching it (twelve-year-old me was a history nerd, but not THAT much of a history nerd) and so didn't clock some of the inaccuracies.
It struck me as odd how much freedom Lali seemed to have, all things considered, but the part that always threw me off the most was how it was advertised. I picked it up in the romance section of my school library, and the librarian recommended it with that same emphasis. I understand that it's a love story, and I understand that that's how Lali wanted it to be told, but it will never not be odd to me that it seemed so comfortable in framing it as "they loved each other and their love saved them". Their love didn't save them. Love didn't save anybody, because it was a genocide, and brushing that away to focus on them snogging is just strange in my opinion.
Anyway, there's my two cents. This was a really interesting video, thank you for taking the time to write/record/edit/post it! I hadn't thought about this book in a good few years, so thank you for giving me means to pause and consider the whole thing again :]
thank you for so much for watching!!
I also read this book around 13 or 14 and thought many of the same things you do
This feels like a sub-genre of “inspiration porn”, & I used to have nothing but disgust for that. It makes me so uncomfortable but, Lali can’t help but romanticise his traumatic past, so maybe it’s only natural that people are endlessly tempted to simplify, sanitise & romanticise history too. While this is so frustrating & uncomfortable, I think it’s really interesting. Basically, I’m glad the story exists, just so you could review it & we could talk about the icky temptation for trauma to transform our past.
Lali’s fixation on his romance reminds me of how some people insist all terrible things “happen for a reason” (🤢). It’s easier to accept things that way. I think some people refuse to engage with an idea unLESS they can stick some meaning or silver lining to it- I bet that’s what this genre is really about.
This isn’t close to the same thing but, when I had cancer (in remission now), multiple people tried to tell me I got sick “for a reason” & I would learn something from it or something. Sure, you can find a lesson in any experience! But suffering isn’t *for* that. Suffering isn’t *for* anything. It just happens. I found many people were more uncomfortable with my being sick than I was. They didn’t want to talk about it unless they could find a silver lining in it. They just couldn’t make sense of something so senseless & scary. (Like bro, it’s just a couple tumours chill.)
Our temptation to twist things like that, to make horrible things fluffy, is just about fear. We don’t like thinking about horrible things as they are & it’s really hard for some people to reconcile that those things happen to good people & for no reason. Their minds get to work shifting memories around, emphasising some over others & attributing meaning where there is none; all to make them feel more in control & less afraid.
There is a horror in knowing there is no greater order to keep horror from finding you. That’s why so many believe in a God, I think. It must be comforting to believe there’s a plan & anything bad which happens is for a reason.
For those of us who don’t believe & who don’t think like that ^ as much, it’s just really uncomfortable (& even triggering) to feel like such serious matters are being romanticised, trivialised & exploited… & how frustrating when even survivors seem to be a part of that process.
Very well said. Completely agree, I couldn't have said it better
thank you for watching and commenting! glad to hear you’re in remission now 💜
It was Art Spiegelman who said people who suffer don't become enobled, they just suffer.
I think she should’ve talked more about the fictional aspects of this, and published it as a memoir or story of memories
Even then I’m not sure how much this would help - it’s basically already a story of memories!
11:42 - that is exactly what the most tragic part of this is. Memories like this are precious and delicate and need to be handled by actual professionals. We could've had an accurate recounting of Lali's story.
A lot of literary works by death camp survivors explore survivor's guilt and morality, the things the authors did to survive and how they grapple with them even years after. With this context, I really think leaving out some events for the sake of having a more heroic and palatable portrait of Lali was a poor choice.
Not gonna lie, it worries me that those more sanitised portrayals of Holocaust are overtaking the general consciousness. In Polish curriculum, there is a substantial number of works written by survivors discussed in high school literature classes. Those works are very difficult to read, but that is the point - it feels scary to me that this is not the norm, and that many people are getting their understanding of those horrific events from romance novels instead of actual unfiltered accounts.
It is insane to me how this history is tokenised for some things like this. Less specifically this one because of the tie to Lali but more broadly the lack of thought behind lots in this genre is mind blowing.
for sure!
Honestly I think the misstep from the beginning was not consulting a memorial museum or foundation before publishing. Yes it’s a personal testimony but those organizations also have other testimonies to corroborate it against. It probably wouldn’t have fixed all the issues but it would’ve helped avoid the simple ones like the number inaccuracies.
As a Jew idk how to feel about these kinds of historical fiction books and movies and what not, as some are clearly made with genuine heart while others are using the Holocaust as a shock value point or to up the steaks of a story. Overall I think it’s just a case by case basis, complex in of itself like the real world tragedy
I think it does say a lot that Holocaust stories do so well, but people don’t know a lot of the basics. I feel like a lot of people haven’t engaged with the history and have a very shallow view of what happened. Ignorance is unfortunately very marketable, which just repeats the cycle.
I kept seeing adverts for the film, before it's release, and i immediately clocked it at oscar bait. There's always at least 1 holocaust story in the running. I wish auschwitz wasn't seen as some kind of literay vehicle to sell books. I've been to the camps and the idea of basing a romance feels...wrong
Edit: sorry, it was a TV show not a movie. It felt so much like award bait to me
I think the last Holocaust movie i saw that actually focused on the horror and tragedy of it was "Bent." It is kind of a love story, but mainly because it's about the persecution of gay men under Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code. The first scene of both the movie and the play it's based on takes place on The Night of the Long Knives, when it becomes violently clear that the laissez-faire attotuyde of the Weimar era was over. The film ends with the main character, who poses as a Jew while in the camp to avoid the abuse gay prisoners got both from guards and from other inmates, putting on his dead boyfriend's jacket, claiming the pink triangle as his own and reclaiming his identity as a gay man, before he grabs the electrified fence.
That's how you do it. It's not a romance story with the Holocaust as set dressing. Its actively a story about the Holocaust, with a doomed love story to further highlight the tragedy of the whole thing. Love doesn't conquer all, and if there is a victory it's a miniscule personal victory that makes the tragedy feel even more profound. It leaves you despondent.
This issue concerns me especially as a German. While I find it acceptable to write a romance in order to educate the readers about the very real horrors of the past, I consider focusing on the romance part of the story including the alleged consummation whilst disregarding some very important historical facts and leaving the industrial m*rder only implied is disinformational fiction and of very poor taste!
That being said, I agree with you in many points.
PS: I am only censoring my language so that Yt doesn't delete my comment, which has happened numerous times before :(
I want to study Holocaust denial, and incorrect details, contradictions, and misunderstandings make it so scary because deniers use this for their agenda
it’s not an easy thing to study, but it’s absolutely worth it. wishing you all the best!
I was just thinking about this! I go to charity shops for books a lot and the sheer amount of Auschwitz themed romances (often quite badly written, too) made me reel… I kinda get that it’s ‘inspirational’ in a screwed up way but it always gives me a ‘are the straights OK’ moment 😅
That said I did read a romance novel set in Nazi Germany where the author admitted she did no real research aside from reading Mein Kampf… yeah, needless to say it was awful…
There’s too many to count!
"She did no research apart from reading Mein Kamof" Oh... oh NO.
The straights are indeed not Okay 🙃
Straights want to be persecuted so badly.
I genuinely can not comprehend this being a problem. I believe you, but I just never could have come up with that combination on my own, much less it being too common…
Finally someone makes a video about this, omg...I've been noticing this trend for a long time and it freaks me out.
thank you for watching 😊
I’m pleasantly surprised to leave this video a more nuanced view. I’ve found it really hard to engage with a lot of historical fiction since I got back into reading, especially works that pull fragments from the archive to ostensibly give a voice to a person without one but essentially speaks for them (I even found Hamnet a bit disquieting for that reason). It’s honestly surprising to find out the book/tv show did honour much of Lali’s testimony. I think the metafiction aspect is interesting and I’d be interested to read an ‘annotated’ version of the book with those historical corrections/clarifications added and call attention to that disconnect rather than obscure it through fictionalisation.
A book I found interesting recently was I Am Not Your Eve by Devika Ponnambalam, which centres one of Gauguin’s victims (Teha’amana) but ends with emphasising how little we know about her and her actual inner world, and also touches upon the fact Tahitian oral histories about her aren’t for the world to know. It was refreshing to have a historical fiction call attention to it imo
I would be SO interested in an annotated version ✍️
I feel like this type of “genre” has been popular for quite some time too. Summer of my German Soldier by Bette Greene came out in 1973 and it’s about a young American Jewish girl who finds a German soldier (he’s a POW) near her home. She helps him out, hides him, brings him food when she can and they have some sort of love story. It was a very popular book and I think a lot of schools even required it for reading and there was a movie made too!
You remind me of my supervisors asking me to define my genres 😅 There is definitely a longer history of these sorts of books, but I think the newest iteration stands out because of the ‘based on a true’ story aspect which leads to the expectation of factual content (whether they can actually achieve that is another matter!)
@@MimiMortmain oh I agree but I was just basically saying I’m not surprised this types of books are popular now lol 😅
They take the superficial setting because it gets people interested and and then whitewash actual historical tragedies to make it more digestible because you don't want the reader to feel TOO bad about themselves. It's actually a scarily common tactic.
@@magiv4205+
This. Most of this is extremely malicious; general education is under attack because of these tactics. I fear for the education of later generations. . .
🤮
I hate that Holocaust romance is even a trope/phrase, let alone how popular it is and that it always seems to be written by non-Jews who don't even take it seriously enough to properly research.
Im APPALED! I feel like acknowledging that Nazis were bad should be the easiest way to reach common ground. Instead, people are "Gone with the Wind-ing" the tragedy and getting away with it?! I just want to puke.
A memoir would've been a much more respectful way of sharing Lali's story, instead of turning it into a romance novel. For all that Lali was happy with it, the sheer volume of the inaccuracies were downright insulting to fellow survivors and their families.
Definitely going to keep a look out for your video on Cilka’s journey! Such an insightful video.
Thank you! Hopefully I can get it out fairly soon 🤞
When i was working in a charity shop last year it really suprised me how many 'Holocaust love story' books there always were. Something about them really rubbed me the wrong way - so thank you for articulating all the issues so clearly! Great video
I think it's perfectly fine for a story to exist which is about memory rather than history. It can then serve as a commentary on how people process trauma and how that changes the way they remember events. However, I think the issue here was that marketing presented this a factual documentation of events and that readers weren't aware that there were innaccuracies in the novel. it would've benefitted from a preface outlining how the book differs from real history and that this is above all historical FICTION even if inspired by a true story
I was pleasantly surprised to see such a well researched and nuanced video from such a small channel! I'm looking forward to the sequel to this video
so glad you liked the video ☺️
Something that horrifies me is knowing were one of the last generations that will learn from survivors. I never knew my grandmother, but her experiences in one of the japanese camps have always heavily affected my family and its something that ive known about since i was very young. Ive had survivors speak to my class when i was in elementary, so around 8 years old. Ive known survivors, and seen their trauma first hand. Im horrified by the idea that future generations will never have that perspective. I feel like people are already starting to forget.
"There was nothing to fix" is a very bold and stupid thing to say when being criticised for changing things in your dramatisation of _someone else's_ story...
It's also a major misunderstanding of how historic knowledge works, it's like science in that it's never fully set in stone, new evidence or connections that change our understanding of events can be found at any moment even with a subject as highly studied as this.
human memory can be extremely unreliable, especially when related to traumatic experiences. i always think about "inside the book depository" these days when thinking about first hand testimony, it's a documentary right here on youtube about the jfk assassination focused on what was happening inside the book depository the shots were fired from.
so many witness testimonies conflict, in ways that are clearly not malicious, but simply, human. leaving the window seconds vs minutes after, what they could see vs what they imagined seeing.
and i think that's always important to keep in mind, not to doubt or discredit what people say, but to simply remember, that the human brain is not a camera, and it can warp and change over even mere hours and days, never mind DECADES. the brain also has a tendency to couch traumatic memories in whatever softness or romance it can, that's one of the reasons people often go back to their abusers, because in their mind, it "wasn't that bad" because their brain is attempting to protect them, it's not at all unbelievable to think that lali's memories of his time have largely been smoothed over in his recollection, with clarity given to his moments with gita, because those were the moments that were not horrifically traumatic for him.
in conclusion always take witness statements with a grain of salt, and corroborating details with historical record is i think the best way to go about this sort of writing (though heather morris clearly did not do quite as good a job at that as she should have)
also i think if lali wanted it told as a love story, that's his right to request. i do think survivors should be allowed to take back their narratives in that way if they so choose, if that is how they want to use their voices, they should be allowed that. (though i know not every book in this sub-genre is a result of testimony from people who wanted their stories told this way, and THOSE i think are, a little more of a yikes. it's one thing to recount a true story the way the person telling it wanted it told, it's another to, completely invent a love story and set it in one of the most horrific events in human history, which still exists in living memory.)
The concerning issue is the proliferation of these fabrications. But wait, I should probably read The Astronaut of Auschwitz before making a harsh conclusion.
Thank you for making this Mimi!
I for one can’t wait to hear about Cilka’s Journey. This was my first Heather Morrison book, then I found out about the inaccuracies. I can’t wait to learn more!
thank YOU for watching 😊 the Cilka video is looking to be a wild ride already...
I've never read this book but I'm of the impression that it started "The ______ of Auschwitz" novel trend.
Just reminds me of the shit that happened with the boy in the striped pajamas. Like did that situation not make people wake tf up???
at least Heather Morris has corrected new editions! John Boyne just doubled down instead 😬
“If people want to quibble, fine” whattt? She’s a writer and that’s the best she could do?
You wrote this story like they were teenagers in detention who had to sneak out at night. A rec center and free time? It was a death camp. That’s not a quibble.
I know im just a rando on the internet saying this, but my Creative Writing lecturer met Heather Morris when he worked at a publishing company, said she was flexing the luxury that the book had given her. Went on a whole rant about it during one of our lectures. If true, definitely reflects badly on her.
This video unlocked a deeply buried memory of mine. So theres this Canadian cartoon, Total Drama Island, which i LOVED as a teenager, and early on in the fandom another teenager (14) decided to write a Holocaust romance fanfic. This fic dropped in 2009 and has never been taken down. You can still read it all. The author has since added an authors note saying they dont regret writing the story and would like to rewrite and publish it. Every time i see some distasteful romance story between a Nazi and a Holocaust victim, I'll wonder if edwardandbella4eva wrote it.
At one point in time: Illumaghtii made a video about this topic (before she was revealed to be an awful person)
I think I remember it!
I haven’t seen illuminaughti in a long time. What did they do ?
@@daytonmorehead7330It would take a while to explain, but long story short; she was manipulative and spread rumors and just overall really fucking shitty. I would do some research if I were you
@@daytonmorehead7330 It's a pretty long story but it basically boils down to this: Illuminaughtii wrongfully called LeagleEagle out for plagiarism and then got handed the receipts because it was actually her that plagiarized other people's content for her videos. Then other people started to call her out for other stuff too, like emotionally and financially abusing her friends and partners and just being a bad person in general. It all ended in a legal battle with Oz Media and now her channel is dead. There are tons of videos talking about this, it's insane.
@@daytonmorehead7330a lot. the primary stuff was plagiarism in her videos, and just kind of being awful to other RUclipsrs in general, accusing one of supporting a p3do, and engaging in abusive behavior that drove someone to a mental health crisis and then posted their suicide notes in her ‘apology’ video. there were also other claims of abuse from people she worked and live with but it’s quite a rabbit hole as you can imagine
I am so ready for this video.
glad to hear it!
Fantastic video- and you hit such a niche of topics I'm very interested in, so I am subbed and looking forward to more!
I have a similar focus on the differences in fact v fiction surrounding traumatic events (though I tend to focus more on memorials and museums) but I find myself centering my focus on how someone who isn't very well informed would view the work.
To caveat- I think the Auschwitz museum and the researcher's denunciation of the Tattooist is completely correct and is doing exactly what should be done as a historian and a voice for that museum and those people's history.
But the thought I always wind up with at the end is exactly the reality you laid out at 18:04- more people will consume a dramatized version of a traumatic event like the holocaust than an academic text about it.
What is the point of raising awareness of these stories? While it is to me undeniable that the most accurate version of events should be recorded for the sake of preservation, is that why education exists around these traumatic topics? I don't think it is. We shouldn't be taught about the Holocaust in order to most accurately memorize its events to the best of society's ability but for the purpose of doing all we can to ensure nothing like it ever happens again. To that end, a dramatized, (sometimes fictionalized) narrative- sadly- is I think a much better way of teaching empathy to general society.
There is of course a line. I haven't read or watched Tattooist yet and I'm not an expert nor personally have any testimony related to the Holocaust so I don't think I'm at liberty to say where that line is (but I am fairly confident the Boy in the Striped Pajamas is over that line).
discovered your channel today and i’m obsessed. youtube seems to be going downhill but your videos harken the days of well made video essays. keep it up!
nawwww thank you 😊 I loved the old school video essays so I'm happy I'm at the point academically where I can have a go at making my own!
i do have to respect heather morris for attempting to portray lali’s story as he had wanted; the novel or tv show wouldn’t even exist without lali’s testimony in the first place. i think the publishing team really dropped the ball when trying to market the book as objective truth versus an account of subjective memories. a lot more of the historical inaccuracies could be excused if they had gone a different route during the marketing. if lali had told morris something that was not entirely factual according to the more objective evidence we have available, it can easily and understandably be lali trying to make sense of a really traumatic time in his life and having flaws and gaps in his memory. also an appendix at the end going into more depth about specific inaccuracies along side the more objective evidence available wouldn’t hurt either towards portraying a more realized account of the Holocaust
honestly, i came into this video expecting you to say something really stupid, as a lot of people on youtube would do with this sort of video. i was honestly shocked by how fair you were, in that some of the stupider things were clearly the opinions of other that needed to be covered to demonstrate reactions to the book, and in that the few times you cast judgement were reasonable.
really good video, more people should strive to be like you and make work like your work
Thank you so much for this 🥹
My favourite book genre "Holocaust historians don't want you to read this!" /j
As Witek-Malicka's compatriot I would just like to point out that her name is pronounced differently (more like 'Vanda 'Vitek-Ma'litska(first 2 syllables like in "malice"). Mordowicz (a Polish Jew born in a town in the same district as Warsaw) is pronounced like Mord(like Tolkien's Mordor)'owitsh (last sound is [tʃ]), not Mordowitz. Pszczyna is said like Pshchyna, but it's understandable, I don't think anyone who doesn't speak Polish would get it right. However, these are minor things, and I appreciate you took up this subject. Best wishes from Poland
Thank you for clarifying! I looked up the pronunciations before, but I’m not sure how accurate they were and it will probably always sound a bit funny to a native speaker when I say it because we all have our different accents 💜
@MimiMortmain unfortunately we still don't have all the tools we need at our disposal, I would love more pronounciation guides haha. But still, it's very respectful of you to look it up, it's always better than not trying at all. Also it was not that bad for a foreigner 💚
not sure I have much to add to the conversation, so-Wow, you deserve a lot more subscribers! Your consideration of the topic really shines through and was super informative, plus you’ve got a nice voice and a nice presentation!
tysm, this really made my day ☺️
I discovered your channel 3 hours ago, and you posted a video 1 hour ago. Thank you, recommendations, but also what the heck. I am both intrigued and horrified for what is soon to come.
What a coincidence!
Dr Kirril Shields, one of the authors from the paper from the University of Queensland, is actually one of my teachers there in a literature class! He's a great guy, very engaging, and it was so crazy seeing his name pop up here!
That’s super cool!
I actual have this book and have read it, and I must say I completely agree with everything you say. Even while reading this book I felt it was ment to be a spectacle more than anything. While I did think it was well written, I definitely don’t think it makes a good historical retelling of someone’s story. And I’m glad so many other people share this feeling because I had know idea about any controversy when I’d bought this book. But even then I read it with the understanding that theses events where not ment to be taken as historic, and more importantly that this book was not a good representation of the complicated relationships and situations people in the camp found themselves in. And I feel this idea was cemented because at the same time for school I was required to read another book about the Holocaust (Tattooist was a personal read ) When The World Was Our, which still takes creative liberties but I feel tells a better story using real people’s history far better than the tattooists, I really hope this makes sense lmao I don’t normally comment on videos but I absolutely loved this one!
thank you so much for commenting 😊
I’ve skimmed this out of morbid curiosity. Long story short, it’s horrible. However at the end of the day it’s just a sigh that time marches on. We’re on the edge of WWII being out of living memory ( which is crazy and very sad because that means Grandpa Lou from Rugrats is probably no longer with us). The Holocaust at the end of the day is just another one of histories sad tales of man’s barbarism towards man. It’s unthinkable to us to make up a sappy trashy romance novel but, we gladly make heroes out of Spartans and Romans who did the same type of stuff. When we’re all dead this will be even more palatable. Which stinks but it’s just time’s arrow.
Very true, we only have about a decade or two left of living memory. Academically I find how collective memory changes over time very interesting but I do wonder what these changes will mean…
Great video, I just found your channel and I look forward to the follow up on the other book!
thank you for watching 😊
Memoirs with historical accuracy notes or psychological notes would be the best way to preserve these first person accounts. This current trend is iffy to say the least. If it's historical fiction, there is still an expectation from the audience of historical accuracy, and a lack of it is just the past being romanticized at best.
Considering that the romance genre is meant to end a book in happily together forever or for now... Either being the end feels disingenuous for a book about such a time, though I could forgive it if it was about people who did survive together or were separated and then reunited when the war ended. But if it's the middle of the war when the book ends and it's about death camps, then it feels wrong to even do happily for now.
Interesting video. Hope you keep uploading.
that’s the plan 😊
great video ! have you heard of the book heavyweight by solomon j brager? it’s a graphic memoir abt family history that includes various family members holocaust testimony but it also has a really excellent grasp of like historicity, the importance of contextualising b & sometimes the frustrations of dealing with survivor testimony - when they leave gaps, misrepresent things, make mistakes etc !! wld rly recommend it bc i feel like it does some of what the show adds in but in an even more (imo) accurate, conscientious way. anyway thanks again for an educational video !
It should have been published before Lali died.
Reminds me of the book my grandma never finished.
Ahe also changed details on purpose, to make it less sad and tragic. I argued she should write it raw, but she disagreed.
is it bad that I didn't realize until you showed a picture of the author that it wasn't Glee actress Hearher Morris?
😂
Welcome back to my favourite book youtuber
🥹
the way i’ve been waiting SO impatiently for this video
only took a year haha (but thank you for all your support along the way 🥹)
I am from Germany and our whole grade once visited a concentration camp nearby. The things we heard and saw there felt so different in comparison to just reading about them in school. It felt really heavy to be there, a place where many people had died. Especially because we had a survivor coming to our school every year talking to a higher grade (10th grade I think). If someone escaped the other prisoners would have to wait for hours on end while remaining in a standing position (I believe it was 24 straight hours). The guards firing their guns at random seems odd, because they were constantly searching for cheaper, faster and more effective ways to get rid of the prisoners
@ 3:32 28 October 1916 was a Saturday
@ 3:40 23 April 1942 was a Thursday
Did you look that up, or do you do that in your head?
@ I did it all in my head
Thank you 🙏 I didn’t know if I needed this but now I have it!
@@cameronspalding9792 Very cool!
Now im glad i got my copy of this book from the used bookstore clearance section.
concept: series of romance novels that take place around other various tragedies. do you think a 9/11 romance would be better or worse recieved than a holocaust one? just kidding it probably would be borderline banned in america
I don't know about romance novels specifically, but there's plenty of insensitive 9/11 media. And people didn't even wait for COVID lock-downs to end before writing romance novels about it.
It may be cringe, but this is clearly one of those aspects of human nature that's pretty widespread.
Update: 9/11 Romance Novels:
1. "The Light We Lost" by Jill Santopolo
2. "Tuesday Morning" by Karen Kingsbury
3. "Eleven" by Anahit Khach.
Wow, thats a tough one. I've read this book and both its sequels and actually liked them. I remember being somewhat irritated by the first one, because it seemed a little too focussed on the relationship between Gita and Lali and everything appeared to be "too smooth" (in a way that basically all plans turned out and there where no major setbacks) but I thought I had really learned a lot with the second book as it is (mainly) about the time after the concentration camps when Cilka is deported to Siberia. Is the thrid book (The three sisters) as bad as the first two?
They’re effectively written books - that’s why they’re so popular! The problem with Cilka’s Journey is that it appears to have gotten some really major things wrong, but The Three Sisters is the best of the bunch I would say. The writing improved so much in it and I think it helped that Heather Morris could talk to the survivors while she was working on the book. That said, it still has the same tone as her previous books…
Thank you for this video, I started reading this book when I was 13/14 and at the time, didn't understand the harm in the historical accuracies - much like when I read and watched 'The Boy In The Striped Pajamas' all those years ago. I'm now 19 and a lot more educated in Holocaust history, and German in general during that time.
I'm wondering if you'll ever make a video discussing John Boyne's book "The Boy At The Top Of The Mountain"? Boyne's less well known WW2 book for younger readers, when I was 11/12 I really liked it as it seemed (to me, at the time) somewhat more realistic than TBITSP. I just don't see anyone talking about that book and would love to know what you think about it. As I very much enjoyed your other videos discussing his books I used to be a big fan of John Boyne but in recent years, for obvious reasons, my opinion has shifted.
I also didn't know The Tattooist had been turned into a tv show at all, I might give it a watch rather than finish reading the book.
I was given this book as a birthday present since "I like history". I felt sick just reading the back blurb and never read it.
As someone who has read a lot of "Primo Levi" and other first hand accounts of the holocaust, as well as having the privilege of meeting some survivors, the tone of "the tattooist of auswitch" struck me as extremely strange. I can't stress enough. It's a miracle anyone survived these camps. They were freezing, starving, ill, all while being forced to undergo hard labour. The cruelty is unimaginable.
I'm going to say something pretty unpopular; I didn't think Lali came across the best even with all t left out about him later. So, I'm not totally shocked by any of this.
Wow. This is a genre I didn't know existed. Gross.
ik jts only been 21 hours but thus video is extremely underrated
hahahaha thank you for the kind words!
Weather the story was real or fiction is irrelevant to what I got from it.
That the Nazi collaborators weren't traitors,
Rather just people trying to survive..
How could i not click on this vid? That is insane.
Hi!! Could you please make a video on the inaccuracies of the movie 'A White Bird'? Because I just recently watched it and I love the movie, but I really want to know about the actual history 🫶🏾🫶🏾🫶🏾 Thank you so much in advance if you choose to do so!!!!
Some of those books you show [for example, the Dressmakers of Auschwitz] are factual accounts and not novels.
They are likely marketed with the same intent as Tattoist [although there are so many Profession of Camp stories now people don't really know where it comes from].
I read this book quite a while ago, didn't find it to be very good and forgot most it (althoughi wasn'texpectingit to be a romance book), seems like that was for the best, one of the main thing i remember was how little character Gita had lol... I'd be interested in a similar video about the Cilka book.
New Mimi vid 🙌
It’s been long enough 😅
WW2 settings are so tired now but authors know they sell so…
I'd be interested to see your take on another Australian author's holocaust book series. It's called the 'Once' series by Morris Gleitzman and follows a grandfather recounting his experience as a jewish child during the holocaust, and then later his experience moving to Australia, as well as his granddaughter's experience in modern day Australia. I've only ever heard good things about it, so maybe a good candidate for a: this is how you do a holocaust novel? Either way, I'd love to see your thoughts
I saw that book in Waterstones and I was gonna get it because I thought it was non-fiction. So glad I read the blurb first
Okay so I wasn’t the only one who like doubted the accuracy or depiction (not sure how to describe it) of this story and others after it
I haven't watched this yet but I went and got my copy when I saw this video come on my feed and I wanted to comment this while I still had it with me. The back of the book where there's a little biography about the author says "In 2003, she was introduced to Lale Sokolov, who entrusted her with the innermost details of his life during the Holocaust" however the page with the copyright info reads "This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialog are drawn from the authors imagination and are not to be construed as real" what the absolute fuck? The dedication says "To the memory of Lale Sokolov. Thank you for trusting me to tell your and Gita's story" how is is their story if everything is fictitious??? I never noticed that page bc I skip the copyright page. I spent years thinking this was a real story, that everything in the book really happened to Lale but it's all fake?? How can it be fake if she claims he trusted her with info on what happened to him and his story?? And the way that bit about it being fiction was snuck onto a page no one would bother looking at.. what a mess
14:06 Melbourne is pronounced like mel-ben
lmao I know and I have no idea why I said it like that 😅
I have a rule of thumb: if the first time I hear about a "concerning trend" is someone _complaining_ about it, then I don't actually need to be concerned.
ahahahahah that’s valid
I read the book long ago, and when I saw the series, I went down a rabbit hole of official records. On the site of the Shoah Foundation, I saw the interviews of both Lale and his wife (Gisela). It was filmed long before the author had her interviews with Lale. With all due respect to being a survivor, it's the weirdest account of events I've seen. "Big fish" energy... He REALLY said that the Nazi guard was like a brother to him.
The problems of the books start from the source, and it's a shame :( but people come on many hummm... levels of "truth adorning storytelling"? I don't know how to put it.
Maybe the other "accounts" weren't exactly truthful about the camps, The eagle and bear cage, the electric water room that disintegrates you or the shotgun that you put into a wall that curves around and shoots you in the face. All official published claims from the 40s.
Yes to rabbit holes down official records 👏 I think what we have to remember is that surviving was not the typical experience tragically, especially for those who were taken there in 1942, and the reasons for surviving might be personality traits that we would now find surprising. Baretzki (the guard) was also a peculiar person - he testified against his former superiors, so he was a pyscho but not one with any particular loyalties
If you want real context for why this genre is acceptable, and why anyone would want to read the love story of people under the circumstances of being marked for industrial m urder, People Love Dea d Jews by Dara Horn is about the world's obsession with viewing the deaths of Jewish people as a moral lesson, a thing that Needs to Happen, something inevitable. Its why our genoc1de is so often the backdrop for white ppls stories about being Saviours and falling in love amongst the death.
I have a copy of it, but I never bothered to actually read it.
This is why aliens will not visit us.
Based on a story or someone's memory? Because our own brains deceive us.
Hi Mimi. I love your videos, been watching for a while (really liked the Stripped Pajamas video)! I was just wondering, have you watched “Bent”(1997) based in the 1979 play of the same name? It’s another holocaust story and I was wondering what you thought of it. It’s rather bleak but also controversial. It feels a bit exploitative imo.
Yes you can write a fictional story set in a construction camp but you have to fucking TRY to be historically accurate.
Damn I have the book
What if we kissed while being a target of a largest hecatomb in history?❤❤ Just joking haha, unless?..
Yo, you can totally put that script you're reading off of more by the camera so it's not so obvious you're looking off to the side.
oh 100%, being on camera is absolutely not in my comfort zone but I’m trying to increase my confidence! please bear with 😅
"One of the most widely read historical novels of all time" BOO GO READ HUMAN ACTS BY HAN KANG BOOO
I am sorry for the off topic comment. But with your facial expressivness you look like Emilia Clark!
This is why I hate booktoks like this and only enjoy comics, and manga. Adults have very poor taste in entertainment. They also assume us teens are only interested in these types of books.
I’m not always a fan of a lot of tiktok books too, but there are so many others out there instead! Maybe try some classics or even some new releases in the same genre as the comics/manga you like and see if there is anything you end up liking? 😊📚
@ its fine. It's just I'm more visual type personal than just not seeing it. Plus classics aren't my taste. I'm not trying to be rude.
That’s fair and there are loads of amazing comics/graphic novels out there!
Holy crapppppppp
Super amateur in fact
I remember trying to read the tattooist of Auschwitz’s but being unable to really get in to it where in comparison I’ve read Corrie Ten boom’s autobiographical book the hiding place dozens of times and elie wiesel’s memoir Night at least twice I think a lot of it just had to do with how more real those felt in comparison