Tattooist's Son: Journey to Auschwitz, The (2025)

[bunniefuu]

(WIND HOWLS)

MAN:

I'm terrified of Auschwitz.

(MAN EXHALES)

Okay.

No.

I'm not ready to walk in yet.

Sorry.

(MAN EXHALES)

Why do I not have the guts

to do it?

DIRECTOR: You live

in a very unique world,

...because the world knows

about your mother and father.

WOMAN: Mr. Sokolov...

Call me Lali.

You're looking for someone

to write your life story?

My parents were almost like,

that got put away in a box.

His story was kept hidden

for decades,

until he revealed it

to author Heather Morris.

It is a Holocaust story.

It's not the story

of the Holocaust.

GARY: There are still

unanswered questions.

Why was my dad so hardened?

Why was my mom so depressed?

The people

that have read the book

actually knew more

than I did growing up.

The thought of having to walk

through those gates

terrifies me.

And I have tried four times

and I couldn't even cross,

which made me feel

like a coward.

This is my parents' history.

My dad would be

so proud of that.

It's amazing.

I felt the presence of your mom.

She let me tell this story.

He's just this one man

and he's so small

in this enormous camp,

and he's learning about

the horror that's unfolding.

GARY: And that's what

beats me up,

is that there's this gap

of their experience

that I haven't experienced yet.

I have to do this now.

GARY: Smile for the camera.

You beautiful bird.

When she's not trying

to tell me off.

There you go.

BIRD CHEEPS

GARY: Yeah, oh!

Okay, so,

my name's Gary Sokolov.

I am the only child of Lali

and Gita Sokolov.

My parents were happy people.

They had managed to almost

wipe out that whole experience,

and for them, it was always

about moving forward.

I mean, how beautiful is my mom?

And look at my dad.

And there was that smile.

How proud they were

to have had a child.

You know, 16 years of trying,

and they finally had a son.

And you can just see the glow.

I'm 63.

It's time.

It's time for me

to know my parents.

And they deserve for me

to understand

what they went through.

I want now to walk

in their footsteps.

You know, try and understand

what was going

through their heads,

because the impact

it had on them was lifelong.

INTERVIEWER: When did you

arrive in Australia?

1949, September.

You want to see the picture?

In that photo

is when we arrived,

the first day, to Australia.

It is Sydney.

INTERVIEWER 2: Have you

had any children?

I have one son. Thanks, God.

Who is a very big and good boy.

He is big all the time,

but good occasionally.

INTERVIEWER 2:

What's his name?

Gary, and we love him very much.

GARY: Do you want some help?

GIRL: Can you grab

the mayonnaise?

GARY: Yeah.

And salt.

-Yeah.

-What's that?

GARY: Being a dad was really,

really important to me.

I suppose,

if there was any enormous guilt,

it would have been

if my parents had survived

and there was no continuity.

-Hello. Good Shabbos.

-GARY: Good Shabbos.

-Hello, Mommy.

-Mali, you look beautiful!

How are you? Good Shabbos.

GARY: I cherish every single

happy or sad moment with them,

because I'm a dad.

And that's, like, amazing.

-Good Shabbos, everyone!

-Good Shabbos, everyone!

-L'chaim.

-MOM: L'chaim.

Dig in and eat.

Right, who stole the gravy?

GIRL: Me.

-HEATHER:

Are you ready? Yes.

HEATHER: When I had spent

that first day with him,

he said to me,

"Did you know I was

the Tattoowierer in Auschwitz?"

I was spending time with

this man who had lived through

one of the most horrific

episodes of recent history.

Not only lived, he'd survived.

He'd been a fighter.

He always would do that

to his arm,

and made the numbers...

GARY: I would sometimes

come home from work

and he would be standing,

staring at that window.

He wouldn't even hear me

come in.

And it would be like, "Hi, Dad."

And he wouldn't react

for a minute or two.

LALI INHALES

I'm right here.

You know it.

HEATHER: Your dad said to me

so many times

about he was constantly

surrounded by ghosts.

Mm. Yeah.

They had been part of his life

since the day he left there.

I could see every now and then

when he left me,

and I knew,

"Now he's back in 1942."

I was 11 or 12 years old,

and there was a documentary.

Um... World at w*r.

And my parents said to me

that I have to watch this.

And I had to sit there

by myself,

watching this.

NARRATOR: What we went through

will be difficult to understand,

even for our contemporaries,

and much more difficult

for the generations

that have already no personal

experience from those days.

EXHALES

I saw the bulldozers

doing piles of dead bodies,

and people just lying there,

just skin and bone.

That has stuck with me,

and that was my first exposure.

And even after that...

have something to eat,

go to bed.

DIRECTOR: Would you say

you've been traumatized

by their trauma?

That's a really

interesting question.

My parents were almost like,

that got put away in a box.

"That was where we were.

This is where we are now.

We're in Australia."

INTERVIEWER 2: Why did you come

to Australia?

Why we came to Australia?

As far away from "ism"

as possible.

Nazism, communism,

I didn't want to hear about it,

so as far away.

SHIP HORN BLOWS

NARRATOR: Australia opened its

doors to Europe

after World w*r II.

A million-odd migrants brought

a new flavor and a new look,

learning English,

finding jobs, raising families,

and, by and large,

having few regrets.

Yes, young Australia

is a bright light,

a fair dinkum land,

in our changing world.

GARY: I've never met

a Holocaust survivor

that's actually willing

to talk about his experiences.

So, we're now

on our way to visit

a gentleman called

Abram Goldberg.

He was one of the founders

of the Holocaust Museum

here in Melbourne.

It's actually his birthday

in ten days' time.

He's going to be 100.

When they opened the doors,

do you remember

what your first thought was?

I only thought about, "What will

I do? How will I save my mom?"

Right. Okay.

And when my mother had to go

down to the high cattle train,

we didn't know

what those flames are.

-GARY: Right.

-ABRAM: Nobody knew anything.

You only realize it's hell.

And outside,

the way people were treated,

she realized

she is not going to survive.

No. Okay.

So she turned to me and said,

"Abram, you should do everything

humanly possible to survive."

I knew that

I was going to dedicate my life.

It's what I'm doing.

You've done an amazing job.

Not let the world

forget what happened.

GARY: I'm so honored

that I got to talk to you,

because my whole life,

no one spoke to me.

No one wanted to.

ABRAM: I made sure

that my children knows.

NARRATOR: The young Jew in

Australia

has often been brought

up in the shadow

of his parents' direct

experience of persecution.

SINGING IN HEBREW

My name is George Halasz,

and for the last 25 years,

I've been researching

intergenerational trauma

based on the lived experiences

of my mother, Alice,

who's a Holocaust survivor.

You're a second generation

like I'm a second generation.

So, were you curious

about their stories?

I think I was already at the

point where I stopped asking,

because my parents

never answered.

So, that, to me, speaks about

the desire to be secretive.

Yes.

Do you think there was any

quality of numbness in either,

or both, of your parents?

Definitely not Mom.

Very possible with Dad.

Just because I never saw

any emotion from him.

Right.

So something must have happened

to him in the camps

that numbed him,

where he became a person

that only ever looked forward.

-GEORGE: Yes.

-Never looked back.

Look, I witnessed things.

Killings. Right?

t*rture. Beatings. Right?

Unbelievable,

where boys k*lled boys,

inmates k*lled inmates.

What I'm hearing,

your father,

despite the experiences

of Auschwitz-Birkenau,

went on regardless.

If you survived when everyone

around you is dying,

you just think, "All right,

I've survived today."

That survival instinct.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Right.

Holocaust trauma

is the lived experiences

that were so overwhelming

as to actually have changed

their minds and their bodies.

And it is this

persistent survival mode

that is labelled

"traumatic experience".

GARY: Why was my dad

so hardened?

Why was my mom so depressed?

How they must have felt every

single day when they woke up.

The concept of,

"Am I still going to be alive

in ten minutes' time,

or will someone just walk

past me and sh**t me?"

I want to understand

and feel that.

I think I'd like

to go back there.

Yes, to Birkenau, to the camp.

I... I thought you'd never go

back to Europe.

GARY: One of my biggest regrets

with my father

is I should have just hopped

on a plane and taken him.

I'm terrified of Auschwitz.

You know, you hear the stories,

you read the book,

you see the miniseries,

but to actually stand

where they stood...

Yeah, I don't know.

I've been avoiding doing it.

I'm 63 now, yeah?

Um...

I wake up at night and sweat.

Why do I not have

the guts to do it?

This is my parents' history.

I have to do this now.

Keys, phone, wallet, passport.

I'm ready to go.

Look at that. It's real.

It's actually happening.

Ooh!

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Passengers and

cabin crew should now be seated

with their seatbelts

securely fastened...

INTERVIEWER: Where were you

born in Czechoslovakia?

In a small town named Krompachy.

It is Slovakia.

GARY: See, this view,

it's just phenomenal.

Overlooking the hills

and the valley.

Imagine waking up

to that every morning.

What a peaceful way to grow up.

What would it have looked like

back then?

So, I know absolutely nothing

about Krompachy.

All I know is that my dad lived

in Krompachy with his parents.

I mean, what a shock.

There was a w*r about to happen.

INTERVIEWER: 1942,

the Germans came into Slovakia.

LALI: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Did you have

any indication before that,

that they were coming your way?

Not...

What... If I want to tell you...

I never believed it, right?

I never believed it,

because we lived in

a different environment, right?

HEATHER: I don't think Gary

has any idea

what he's about to see,

feel, and learn

over the next few days here.

He's now learning it

for the first time

as a man in his early sixties.

I suspect this is going to be

a very, very emotional time.

I'll be there for him.

Heather.

-HEATHER: Oh!

-GARY EXHALES

HEATHER: We have no more special

place in Krompachy

than where we are standing

right now.

This is my gift to your dad and

your mom, to you and your girls.

-GARY: And my girls.

-HEATHER: Yeah. This is it.

Lenka, please come and join us.

GARY: Hi, Lenka.

-LENKA: Pleasure meeting you.

-GARY: And you, too.

HEATHER: Lenka,

can you translate?

LENKA: It would be my honor.

So, "This is to the memory

of Mr. Ludwig Eisenberg Sokolov

who has lived here.

And this memorial

has been dedicated

to all the people

deprived of their freedom,

dignity, home,

and their own name.

For the memory of all victims

of Holocaust."

My dad would be

so proud of that.

It's amazing.

LENKA: And we are very proud

to have it here.

GARY: This image,

you know,

is embedded in my brain.

My whole life,

my parents held hands.

They were just so in love.

INTERVIEWER: Did you go to

school in Krompachy?

Yeah. Yeah, I went.

I went for eight years

in the normal school,

like every child should have.

-Hi.

-Hi. Gary?

-Gary. I'm Gary, yes.

-Anna.

Nice to meet you, Anna.

-ANNA: Dobry den.

-Dobry den.

Wow, wow.

Am I allowed to sit in a chair?

HEATHER: I don't think

it's an original one.

GARY: That doesn't matter.

It's the room.

Sit down. In the back row.

Yeah, because Dad would never

have been in the front row.

HEATHER: Yes.

It was just something he

said to me about, at school,

how he used to sit and look out

the window and daydream.

Look at this, Dad.

I'm probably sitting

in your chair,

looking outside the window

at your hometown. How cool!

SPEAKS SLOVAK

"When the book came out

about The Tattooist

of Auschwitz...

SPEAKS SLOVAK

...I realized that Lali

was born in 1916."

SPEAKS SLOVAK

"My father was born

in 1916, too.

We are hoping for you

to pick your dad, Lali."

It will be one of those two.

More than likely this one.

Definitely him.

Right there,

looking really smart.

GARY LAUGHS

SPEAKS SLOVAK

Really?

LENKA: "And keep it

as a memory."

Thank you so much.

I've never seen a photo

of my dad before the w*r.

Nothing.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

GARY: Today was

the most amazing day.

LENKA: I have found something

that I believe

you would love to see.

I can confirm

that we have found a house

where your dad lived

in the year 1930.

-This is my friend, Miro.

-GARY: Hi, Miro.

-Very nice to meet you.

-MIRO: Nice to meet you, too.

This is a very good find.

-Thank you.

-Well done, you.

LENKA: The houses here

are beyond repair

and they have to be demolished.

MIRO: This part of the building

was for the animals.

-GARY: The stables.

-MIRO: Yeah.

And you can imagine

where there are some rabbits,

maybe some chickens.

There would have been

a horse as well.

LALI: We had horses,

with two people carrying stuff

over from the station

to the places

where they had to go.

INTERVIEWER: Did you help out

in your family business?

LALI [LAUGHING]: No, not much.

So, finally, we are approaching

your grandfather's house,

where your father lived.

So, we've got the steps

leading into the house,

for sure, the family members

would have walked.

Lucky they were short.

MIRO LAUGHS

Yeah, as you can see,

it's in a very bad situation,

so this is probably

the last chance

to visit the property as it is.

Wow.

I was really hoping,

when I walked in,

just to get, I don't know,

a feeling, something spiritual.

I'm just looking for some stones

to put on my dad's grave

from his home.

Look at this.

I've got enough for both graves.

Huh.

Wow!

This is just superb.

Every time you go and visit

someone's grave,

you're supposed

to leave a stone,

just to let them know

you've come to visit.

You know how you were talking

about living history?

This is the history

of where they were living.

CHUCKLES

That is just unbelievable.

Hello, Lali from Krompachy.

I have to go.

Wait! Wait!

I don't know your name.

It's Gita.

INTERVIEWER 2:

Where were you born?

Vranov nad Topl'ou, Slovakia.

About 200 families

were in that little town.

It was a very close-knit town.

INTERVIEWER 2: Was it 200 Jewish

families, or...?

GITA: Jewish families, yes.

INTERVIEWER 2: How many people

were in your immediate family?

Six children,

my late father and mother.

We wanted to show you

the birth records of your mom...

Oh, wow!

...which we have found

at this registry office.

GARY: I'm tingling.

Wow, wow, wow!

-Baby steps, please.

-Baby steps, yes.

Yeah, because otherwise,

I get so overwhelmed.

I've never seen that photo.

That...

How stylish is my mom?

And look.

You know, look at the smile.

And there's no trauma

in that photo.

There's a genuinely

happy person.

Happy to be alive.

It's a pretty cool photo, huh?

Bless my mom.

LENKA: Gary, this is a place

where you register the birth

of every child being born

in Vranov.

The first

and probably the most special.

-GARY: Mom.

-LENKA: It's your mom.

GARY: Mm.

So, this is the record

of her being born in Vranov

on the 11th of March, 1925.

Here you can see a record

of your mother's sisters.

We've got Rachel,

Golda and Franny.

HEATHER: Didn't come home.

Didn't come home.

Yeah. Okay.

Those b*stards.

DIRECTOR: Why did your mom

not tell you about her sisters?

How do I answer that?

How closed

must my mom have been,

and shut down,

to not even mention

that she had three sisters?

I love my dad dearly,

but all my heart came from Mom.

And this just has

that little bit more meaning.

She just buried it.

She buried it.

And maybe that's why

she was so depressed,

because she buried it

all so deep,

but it was still

in the back of her head.

And, you know, that would

explain the nightmares.

GARY: Where we're standing,

in what was the heart

of the Jewish community,

is symbolic of what happened

all over Europe.

And I'll phrase it like this.

So, here

there was a synagogue...

until there wasn't.

Over here was the spiritual bath

called the Mikvah,

until there wasn't.

The Jewish people were there,

until they weren't anymore.

What's left is a plaque.

That's it.

That's all that's left.

This was the wall of the

synagogue, here,

that my mom attended.

It's a bit of stone

from my mom's synagogue

that is no more.

We're reading excerpts

from something called

my mom's Shoah tape.

And this is a phenomenal project

to videotape every single living

Holocaust survivor's story.

If you don't mind, I just want

to read to you what...

my mom remembered.

"So I went to school."

GITA: Then they kicked

me out of school.

"Like every young person...

I had hopes

that I had to study."

GITA: At 17,

you still haven't got a clear

mind what you want to do.

We knew that the times

aren't very healthy.

Knew something was going

wrong.

They didn't fully

understand what.

And then they asked her

the question.

INTERVIEWER 2: Was your father

able to continue working?

GITA: No.

They took away the bakery.

That's when

the troubles started.

"And after they had

closed everything down

a few weeks later,

they took us."

HE SOBS

And for her, that simple life,

overnight, gone.

Childhood, gone.

Family,

ripped apart.

Gone.

Everything was...

just...

gone.

LALI: The Slovaks were always

antisemites.

You talked to everybody.

They knew that you are a Jew.

But maybe, inside,

they hated you.

People ask whether

what is being done with the Jews

is Christian.

Is it human? Is it not robbery?

I ask, is it Christian when

the nation wants to free itself

from its eternal enemy, the Jew?

Slovak, cast off your parasite.

MADELINE: I have a letter here.

This letter is from

a six-year-old boy

who wrote to Jozef Tiso.

You know, I've got a

seven-year-old,

so this is like trying

to imagine her

writing a letter

to do this is...

Right. It's just mind-boggling.

He's the youngest letter writer

that I have found so far.

This little boy writes,

"Dear Mr. President, every night

I pray for your health.

Mommy always tells me

that if I'm a good boy,

Jesus will bring me

the most beautiful gift

from Mr. President,"

which is an exemption.

I would like to talk to you

a little bit

about this piece of propaganda

that is behind us.

It says, "It is he.

You know him by the star.

It is he who grabs everything

for himself.

It is he who acts against

the state and its friends."

The wearing

of the yellow Star of David

was mandated by

the Jewish Code.

The Slovak press touted it

as the most strict racial law

in all of Europe,

even stricter

than that of the Nazis.

You couldn't go

to sporting events,

parks, restaurants, movies.

You couldn't even

go to the market

at the same time

as everyone else.

What kind of people,

as human beings?

MADELINE: So, these are

the things that

your parents

would have seen.

And they suggested

that the Jews were responsible

for all of

the country's problems,

which is impossible,

because they were only 3.6%

of the population at the time.

Yeah, I know.

It's mind-boggling, isn't it?

To ask me to leave,

they didn't come to the home.

They just put out announcements

that the oldest kids

from every family

have to come to that place,

that evening.

Otherwise,

they will take the parents.

It was up to me to go.

So I went.

I was 17 in March,

and in April

they had already deported us.

INTERVIEWER:

The Slovakian government

came for your parents?

Yeah. Not only for my parents.

For all the Jews.

Because they took

everybody they could.

The Slovak government

paid 500 reichsmarks

for every deported Jew.

-Were you aware of that?

-No.

And they had to pay

for "transportation."

That makes it very uncomfortable

to be in this country,

right here, right now.

A country

that my parents lived in,

their brothers

and sisters lived in.

And knowing that

the government was happy

to pay for them to be deported.

I would just bring up the point,

though,

that not everyone hated Jews.

Right.

But there was tremendous

social pressure not to...

not to associate with Jews,

and not to aid them in any way.

INTERVIEWER: What was the

response of the Jewish community

to these actions?

They had no response.

They couldn't do anything.

Nobody could do anything.

GARY: I feel privileged.

Every survivor needed some luck

in their life,

and I'm a reflection

of that luck.

GUARD: Keep in line!

Come on, keep moving!

Where are we going?

Poland.

GUARD: Keep moving forward!

I hear they'll train you

as a mechanic,

fixing cars, engines.

JONAH: It's funny

being back here.

This is where we filmed

getting onto the carriages.

And it was such a strange day

of filming.

Just me, as Jonah,

trying to imagine

what your dad went through,

stepping onto a carriage,

it's almost impossible

to imagine.

FILM DIRECTOR: And action!

GARY: But what did

you go through

when you walked

into the carriage?

JONAH: They slammed

the door shut,

and everyone just

goes completely quiet.

It was impossible

for it not to impact you

on quite a profound level.

LALI: Nobody knew

what was going to happen.

Nobody knew

where we were going.

He's just this one man,

and he's so small in this

enormous scale of this camp.

And he's learning about

the horror that's unfolding.

GARY: I can see my dad

in your eyes.

I saw my dad in the way

you looked at Anna.

That look of love.

GITA: Your eyes...

Are they blue?

LALI: Sometimes.

OFFICER: Is there a problem?

No. Um...

Just getting some more ink.

How difficult

would it have been for you

to play my mother

in a Holocaust environment?

ANNA: You know,

it was very scary.

I was terrified at first.

I just felt

this great responsibility.

I felt the presence of your mom

from then.

And, I mean, I still feel

that presence sometimes.

-Serious?

-ANNA: I do.

How was it for you,

to watch the story

on the screen?

So, I'll tell you what

my biggest impacts were.

You said,

"God isn't going to help."

And this is an ultra,

ultra-orthodox woman,

where everything

is because of God.

ANNA: Yeah.

That was all Mom.

Lali...

Where is God?

God can't help us, Lali,

but we can help God.

We can show him that

love still exists, even here.

I was brought up secular.

And I think my mom

let go of a lot of it,

maybe because of

a disappointment in God.

Because of the w*r.

How are you feeling generally

about going?

-Do you feel ready now?

-No.

Even more so not ready.

All of a sudden,

that's become...

Look, I'm shaking.

Just look at me.

And that's not the cold.

-That's thinking about...

-Yeah, yeah.

Walking into Birkenau

has a different sense of reality

than it ever did before,

because I know so much now.

If, for any reason,

my parents' souls

are not resting,

maybe this will help

both of them as well.

This is it?

We're getting on here?

Mom's describing her arrival...

in Auschwitz.

"And through the little window

in the wagon,

we could see people

in striped clothing

working in the field.

And so we talked to each other.

'Well, they must be

some criminals.

Definitely not for us.'

But when we arrived,

we had

a very, very bad surprise.

The SS came in,

and they started screaming,

'You are not going

to get out of here,

and you are going to die.'"

GUARD: Halt!

Women this way, men over here.

Thank you. Move along.

GARY: I want to know now.

I want to know

what it was like for them

as best as I possibly can,

to walk in their footsteps.

I didn't go four times before

this trip.

I don't want to make it

number five.

This time I'm going.

HE EXHALES

I'm actually surprised

at how I'm feeling.

I want to see

what happened there.

I want to be close

to my mom and dad in there.

I'm ready.

GARY: I can't stop shaking.

HE SOBS

Okay.

MAN: Come here.

I've got you. Give me your hand.

I'm okay, I'm okay.

HE SNIFFLES

-Hi, Pawel.

-Hi, Gary.

-I'm Gary. Nice to meet you.

-Pleasure to meet you here.

And I know it's going to be

a challenging time,

but thank you very much

for coming to the memorial.

I suppose we can start,

so please follow me.

[CHUCKLING] I can't stop

my knees from shaking.

-Okay.

-Okay.

From 1942, Auschwitz becomes

an extermination camp.

And what you can see here

in front of us

is this iconic entrance

with the "Arbeit Macht Frei"

inscription,

"work makes one free."

LALI: They took us to Auschwitz.

I looked up.

I saw "Arbeit Macht Frei"

in the German language.

And when we came in,

the hell started there.

I'm not ready to walk in yet.

Sorry. [EXHALES]

I can't stop

my legs from shaking.

Okay.

No. [CHUCKLES]

All right, let's do it.

LALI: When we came out

and we saw the SS

and we saw the dogs

and we saw the beating,

then we knew what time it is.

PAWEL: Most of these blocks

were places

where prisoners were sleeping.

The number of people

inside such a building

could exceed 1,000.

Do we have any idea which one

my mom might have been in?

No.

We don't have documents

related to your mother.

The SS, before the evacuation,

they ordered prisoners

to burn the documentation.

And our estimation is

that even up to 95% of the camp

documents were destroyed.

GARY: So, over here,

what we have is a collection

of children's shoes.

Some of these would have been

for kids

that were less

than one year old.

I'm trying to imagine

Aviva's feet.

Shocking, isn't it?

PAWEL: We have to remember

when we look

at every single object here,

it is one person.

Yes.

There's always one story,

one name, one person, object.

GARY: And this is a bit close

to home as well.

It's got my dad's first name

on it, Ludwig.

HE EXHALES

The scale of that just...

INTERVIEWER: Did they give you

a number?

LALI: Yes.

When people think about

Auschwitz survivors...

I'll think about tattoos.

The tattoo is something

essential.

Survivors' children

remember the tattoo,

sometimes without understanding

what it was.

Because they don't want to

explain to them.

In this bureaucratic world

of the SS,

they didn't know who...

-GARY: Who was who.

-PAWEL: Who was who.

Then they thought,

"It will be more useful if this

number will be permanent."

And therefore they needed

tattooists,

and your father

was one of them.

End of the wood

was two needles, right?

One was longer.

The other one

a little bit shorter, right?

And that's how we did

the numbers.

GARY: My mom,

I remember her coming home

one day

with a big bandage on her arm,

and she had just had her tattoo,

her number, removed,

because she just couldn't

look at it anymore.

LALI: The SS,

they took you there.

One day,

I came to the bunker number 11.

And they took me in.

And they tortured you, right?

They beat you.

PAWEL: We don't know exactly

how this investigation

that led to his incarceration...

It is likely

that he could have been here.

First,

you will see the standing cells,

which is a particularly

harsh punishment.

Up to four people standing in

basically one square-meter space

for the entire night.

Each standing cell

looks like this.

It was bricked up.

People crawled inside,

and they were standing

the entire night.

And that's the only entrance

of air.

You can see

there's a very small hole.

It could be covered

from the outside.

So this was one of these extreme

types of punishments

that we have here.

GARY: They had

different designations.

Standing cells,

starvation cells,

death by suffocation.

PAWEL: This is the execution

yard

of the prison building.

And they were shot

in the back of their heads.

So, this is a site

which is a commemorative site,

as you can see.

And there is always

this flag above,

with the stripe pattern.

-GARY: The uniform.

-PAWEL: The uniform pattern.

So it symbolizes the prisoners.

But there was sand

and sawdust that

they were throwing here

to drain the blood.

And the blood reached

meters into the ground.

LALI: The gassing was separate,

and the burning was separate.

HE EXHALES

LALI: They couldn't burn them

that quick.

There was a conveyor belt

from the gas chamber

which came into the crematorium.

And the conveyor belt was

working non-stop,

24 hours a day,

and bringing in

those gassed people, naked.

HE SOBS

GITA: In July,

we went to Birkenau.

That's where

the real trouble started,

the real killings

and disappearings.

Here we go.

There's the building.

There's the train tracks.

My heart's racing.

GARY BREATHES QUICKLY

So, this is the space

that you can see...

Just how vast.

...of basically...

maybe not the entire,

but the majority

of the Birkenau site.

But there's more?

PAWEL: There are some parts

in the forest

that are difficult to see

from here.

But, basically, we can look at

this around-500-acre space.

When the SS moved the k*lling

from Auschwitz-I,

which is some three kilometers

from here, to Birkenau,

they're building an industry

of murdering people.

We have around one million Jews

m*rder*d in Auschwitz.

In fact, in Birkenau,

there were six homicidal

gas chambers

and four crematoria.

GARY: Just in time for my family

to come, yeah.

LALI: The headquarter

was Auschwitz.

The factory k*lling

was done in Birkenau.

In the whole world,

they mention Auschwitz,

but the real McCoy was Birkenau.

PAWEL: Here you can see

a historical freight train car.

And most of the Jews were

deported in freight train cars.

Sometimes people talk about

cattle train cars,

but cattle would get

a lot of air.

In many testimonies we have

people who have lack of air,

and it's overcrowded,

around 80 people in it.

GARY: Oh, God.

So that's all they had?

Yes. There's one for the air

on one side.

There was something on

the other side.

Many survivors talk that finding

a place near this little window

would be...

-Lifesaving.

-Because you would get air.

Right.

PAWEL: And this is the place

where the selection happened

when the transport

of Jews arrived,

because non-Jews do not go

to the selection.

And we estimate that around

75% of Jews

are m*rder*d immediately.

Not everybody

came into the camp.

Only the stronger people came.

The rest went straight away

to be k*lled, to be gassed.

If you had a little pimple

on your hand,

you went to the left.

Most of the girls from my town

were taken

for nothing, nothing.

PAWEL: People have no idea

that they will never

see each other again.

And then,

some of them become prisoners.

They get to a place where

someone makes the tattoo,

and then they enter

into the camp.

And they learn in a moment

that the others were taken

to the gas chambers.

The prisoners do not have...

You know,

they don't sugarcoat it.

They tell them the blunt truth.

And for many of those people,

it is simply too much

to take in.

In the early days,

people couldn't take it.

They ran to the Postenkette,

and there were

3,000 or 4,000 volts in it.

They grabbed the wire,

and they would be k*lled

straight away.

The power k*lled them.

And that was on a daily basis.

Those were the early days

in Birkenau.

GARY: It's so massive.

When you look down this row,

and there's row

after row after row.

The effort they put in.

You know, all the logistics

that went into building

and k*lling

and transporting.

I have nothing else to say,

Stephen.

You can't get

blood out of a stone.

I'm kind of, like...

Yeah.

My dad, when he said,

"I want to apologize

to the people

whose lives I couldn't save,"

his only curiosity about all

the gas chambers was this one.

Crematorium III.

PAWEL: This is a place where

tens of thousands

would walk down.

And I know you wanted to

specifically say a prayer here.

PRAYS IN HEBREW

HE SOBS

GARY: So,

what are we entering now?

PAWEL: So, we are entering into

one of the smaller sections.

And this was called

the Zigeunerlager.

It was the camp for the Roma

and Sinti prisoners.

In the family camp,

your father stayed for some time

in one of the wooden barracks,

and it's over here.

Unique in the stories that Lali

said that he lived on his own.

GARY: Yes.

PAWEL: What we think

is that he lived

as part of the larger group

of this whole unit.

Maybe their conditions of life

were better.

So this is maybe,

kind of the reason for this

isolation, or the feeling...

But that makes no sense.

I can understand some of his

memories would be very vague

as an 89-year-old man,

but one thing

that is impossible to be vague

is not knowing if you are

in your own room or not.

That's...

And I can still

distinctly remember

my mom yelling at my dad

when he was describing the room.

Yelling at him

that it wasn't a six-star hotel.

But maybe they had enough space

that they would be able to have

their own kind

of sleeping places.

Maybe that's the explanation.

GARY: Or he just had his own

room.

-PAWEL: Maybe that also.

-GARY: Yes.

PAWEL: But there could be maybe

several of them.

This sector at the very back

of Birkenau

has a German name,

Effektenlager.

Your mother worked here,

and that was considered to be,

somehow, privileged work.

GARY: Yes, correct.

And then something

that is unique for this place

is that on the other side

of the fence,

you can see this red line.

This is the ruins

of Gas Chamber number 4.

So they were also

close witnesses

to the k*lling process.

GITA: We heard the screams

from where they went...

to the gas.

All my friends were taken.

GARY: When you look

across everything,

it's mind-boggling,

the vastness of this.

Walking in my parents' footsteps

is very special.

I don't think I could ever have

been closer talking to them

than I was here.

When you put it in perspective

of all my family members

that didn't survive,

I feel honored that,

for whatever reason,

my mom and dad

were lucky enough to survive.

I'm going back to Melbourne,

and I can talk to my children

in a whole different way

about their family.

I remember my mom and dad saying

that they wanted to get

as far away from Europe

as they possibly could.

And you can't really get much

further away than Australia.

-Welcome.

-Nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you.

-Thank you so much.

This is Mali,

my youngest daughter.

Yes.

MAN: Shall we go in?

MAN 2: Yes, let's move.

MAN: Puts on some

beautiful music,

and they do a dance of tango.

GARY SPEAKS IN HEBREW

Twinkle Toes.

THEY LAUGH

We dance a lot in here.

Fantastic.

Are we hungry?

Yes? Good.

Well, we've got lots of food.

Why don't you come in?

GARY: Shall we go in?

We forgot the pickles.

How can we forget the pickles?

GARY: You can sit down

with Mother.

Your parents never talked about

the Holocaust?

-A few stories, you know?

-Yeah.

We grew up with everything,

with Dad telling us

from when we were really young.

Yes, I did a lot to survive,

but I still consider

it was 99% of luck

because every moment of the day,

you could be shot, k*lled,

beaten to death

or sent to the gas chamber.

CHARLIE: But whatever question

we ever had

was always answered.

-Brilliant.

-CHARLIE: Always.

When I was ten,

I turned around to Dad one day

and I said to him,

"Dad, do you hate the Germans?"

And he said,

"Don't you ever use that word,

because once you give in

to that emotion,

what is it that you become?"

-As bad as that.

-CHARLIE: Yeah.

So, to me, that was a lesson

in not only survival,

but survival with your humanity

and your dignity intact, yeah.

GARY: That's the right message.

He's an amazing man, this one.

INDISTINCSo, really, this trip

has been amazing for you.

Just phenomenal.

You're telling everything

to your children now.

I don't want them to have

that same emptiness that I had.

HELEN: It's quite profound on me

how you're telling the stories

that you never heard.

It's so important.

GEORGE: Now, having come back,

how are you feeling,

to have a lived experience

of Auschwitz?

GARY: Relieved.

I'm a different person.

-In what way?

-I'm not empty anymore.

Oh!

Maybe I don't know

the right terminology,

but it's almost like

peace of mind.

-Okay.

-If that makes sense?

-Yes.

-GARY: I am comforted

and fulfilled by the fact

that I now know so much more.

GEORGE: Yes.

How do you think you coped

with the emptiness

all the years before?

I think I knew it was there,

but I ignored it.

There's a way of looking at

trauma

that is not actually

a state of mind,

but a state of body.

Now, you're noticing this

and you're saying

it's peace of mind.

And many people might say,

"What a paradox.

You're going to Auschwitz,

and you come back

with peace of mind."

How do you...?

I don't know the answer to that.

I just know I have that feeling.

-GEORGE: It's very real.

-And I've noticed it.

-It's very real.

-GARY: Yeah.

I'm going to have such

a different relationship

with my children,

as a parent and as a friend.

I think I'm going to like myself

a lot more, too,

in the way I relate

because of that.

-GEORGE: Please do.

-Yeah.

It's an absolute honor

to be in your presence.

GARY: Thank you.

It's a very warm feeling.

Oh.

-I'm sorry.

-GEORGE: Please, please.

-It's a release.

-GARY: Okay.

This is not a negative.

MALI: Does it go in order,

like in the alphabet?

-No.

-No?

No, it's wherever

you buy the plots.

Here you go.

This is Mom and Dad.

Look at that.

I miss you guys very much.

First time I've brought your

grandchildren out to see you.

This is Mali, and this is Aviva.

So, I've got stones

from both your hometowns.

So let's all put one on,

just to let them know

we've been here.

Dad, look at that.

From outside your front door.

So you've got a bit of home

to have as well.

Oh!

GARY KISSES

I wish you could

have met them.

How my dad would have

fussed over you two,

and Mom would have had you

in the kitchen,

teaching you songs

and watching her bake.

She would have been in heaven.

How you going, choop?

Doing good?

Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: How did you find

Gita after you were liberated?

I couldn't go by train

because it was bombed.

The train couldn't go through

the bridges.

So I bought a horse.

You know?

And I took my horse,

and I was going

hundreds of kilometers

to look for her.

GITA: And, one day,

turns up a horse

on two wheels.

You know, that carriage?

I look back there,

and it's my husband.

GITA: Lali!

SHE SOBS

He chased me and found me,

and we are happy together.

-GARY: Do you know who that is?

-AVIVA: That's...

That's your dad.

-GARY: Who's that?

-AVIVA: Your mom.

-And who's that?

-You.

Yeah. This is from

their 50th wedding anniversary.

I threw a really big party

for them.

Pretty good-looking dude,

your dad, huh?

-AVIVA: No, he looks better.

-GARY: Really? [LAUGHS]

Thanks.

It's okay. I love you still.

MALI: Watch this!

GARY: My parents found

each other,

and they got married

in Krompachy.

And what I have here just shows

you how much they were in love.

So, this is a photo from

the Tatras mountain range,

and my parents went there

on their honeymoon.

Have a look.

This is post-w*r, with hair,

just so, so very happy

and in love.

So I'm the result of one of

the most amazing romances

in the most horrific place

that ever existed.

I mean, even the fact

that I'm around

is also seriously good luck.

Wahoo!

It's amazing!

I love it!

GARY: I have

two beautiful girls.

They will be able

to continue the story,

and that is

my greatest happiness.

MALI: Go run.

AVIVA: Go for a run.

Get some exercise in.

THEY LAUGH