Summary

In the Prologue, Lale shakily tattoos the number 34902 onto the arm of a young woman, feeling immense guilt about the pain he is inflicting. When he looks into her eyes, his heart beats faster and threatens to burst out of his chest.

Chapter 1 then goes back in time to April 1942. Acquiescing to the Germans, the Slovakian government demands that each Jewish family hand over a child aged 18 or older to work for the Germans and Lale had bravely volunteers. Now the 25-year-old Lale is one of countless terrified young Jewish men stuffed into wagons on their way to the unknown. He tries to maintain a sense of calm to comfort the others. They pass Czechoslovakia and arrive in Poland. Armed SS soldiers welcome them to Auschwitz Two-Birkenau, their new home. They are assigned unique numbers which are tattooed onto their arms (Lale...