Dog

In Lale Sokolov's account of Auschwitz, the Dog is never a single named animal but a pervasive instrument of the camp's machinery of terror. Dogs appear at the moments of greatest violence and transition, functioning as extensions of the SS's will to control, corral, and punish. They are present at the cattle train's arrival, where they snap and bite at men too slow to move after days of confinement; they are unleashed during the liquidation of the Gypsy camp; and they are deployed again on the morning of the death march, when a dog brings a woman to the ground and her attempted rescue ends in a pistol shot. Yet the same narrative that makes dogs agents of brutality also records a different animal—a single horse and cart in the town of Vranov nad Topl'ou—as the instrument of Lale's escape from his past and his journey back to Gita. The contrast between the camp's dogs and the postwar horse marks the distance between a world that weaponized animals against humans and a world where an animal could carry a man toward love and freedom.

Dogs as Instruments of Arrival and Control

The first appearance of dogs in Lale's account comes at the moment the cattle train stops and the prisoners are forced out. After two days of travel in a wagon less than ten feet wide, with two buckets serving as toilets and men fighting over the stench, the doors clang open to a scene of barking dogs and shouted German orders. The dogs snap and bite at those who are slow to move, adding physical pain to the shock of arrival. Many prisoners stumble, their leg muscles refusing to work after days without use, and the dogs are there to punish any hesitation. Lale, one of the last to leave the wagon, steps over the body of a man killed in the skirmish and brings with him the stench that has soaked into his clothes and skin. The dogs are part of the first lesson of the camp: that the body is no longer one's own, that movement must be immediate and obedient, and that the SS have animals trained to enforce this.

The dogs also serve as a visual marker of the SS's power. As Lale studies the men in uniform—black and threatening, with the twin lightning bolts on their collars—he notes that under different circumstances he might appreciate the tailoring and the sharpness of the cut. But the dogs beside them are not tailored or fine; they are raw force, the teeth of the regime. The combination of the SS's polished uniforms and their snarling dogs creates a tableau of controlled violence, one that Lale, dressed in his pressed suit and tie, is only beginning to understand. He has been told he is being taken to work for the Germans, and that is what he plans to do, but the dogs, the rifles, and the confiscation of his belongings are things he had been unable to imagine.

Dogs in the Liquidation of the Gypsy Camp

Dogs return at one of the most harrowing moments of Lale's time in the camp: the liquidation of the Gypsy camp, where he has been living and where he has found a sense of security and belonging. Late one night, Lale is woken by yelling SS, barking dogs, and screaming women and children. He opens his door to see the men, women, and children of his block being forced from the building, and he watches until the last woman, clutching an infant, is shoved brutally out into the night. All around him, the other Romany blocks are also being emptied. Thousands of people are herded onto nearby trucks, the compound lit up, dozens of SS and their dogs corralling the mob and shooting at anyone who does not respond immediately to the instruction to get on the truck. When Lale stops a passing officer he recognizes and asks where they are being taken, the man responds, "You want to join them, Tätowierer?" and walks on. The dogs are part of this night's terror, their barking merging with the screams of women and children, their presence ensuring that no one hesitates.

The liquidation of the Gypsy camp is a turning point for Lale. He has been living among the Romany, playing with their children and talking to their parents, and he loves how they care for everyone, not only their biological family. He does not connect so well with the older men, who sit around not engaging with the children or the young adults, and when he looks at them he often thinks about his own father. But the night the dogs come, all of that is swept away. The dogs are not just instruments of the SS; they are the heralds of a loss that Lale can do nothing to prevent. His immunity to the camp's disputes, his relative comfort as the Tätowierer, is shattered by the sight of the last woman clutching an infant being shoved out into the night.

Dogs on the Morning of the Death March

The dogs appear one final time in the camp itself on the morning of the evacuation, when Lale is woken by a great commotion and the sounds of rifle shots. Memories of the night the Romany were taken flood back, and he wonders what new horror this is. Thousands of women prisoners are being corralled into rows, and there is obvious confusion, as if neither guards nor prisoners know quite what is expected. Snow continues to fall, and running is impossible. Lale watches as a dog snaps at the legs of one woman and brings her to the ground. A friend reaches down to help her to her feet, but the SS officer holding the dog draws his pistol and shoots the fallen woman. The dog is the immediate cause of the woman's death, but the SS officer's pistol is the instrument of it; together they demonstrate the casual, almost routine nature of violence in the camp. The dog does not kill, but it creates the situation in which killing becomes easy.

Lale hurries on, looking down the rows, searching desperately for Gita. He finally sees her, her head down, her shoulders moving with sobs, and Dana spots him and pulls Gita toward the outside of their row. Their eyes meet, hers wet and pleading, his full of sorrow. Focused on Gita, Lale does not see the SS officer, and he is unable to move out of the way of the rifle that swings at him, connecting with his face and sending him to his knees. Gita and Dana both scream and try to force their way back through the column of women, but to no avail; they are swept up in the tide. The dogs are part of this chaos, snapping at legs and bringing women to the ground, but the deeper horror is the separation. Lale and Gita are parted not by a wall but by the tide of women and the violence of the guards, and the dogs are the teeth of that tide.

The Horse as Counterpoint

Against the camp's dogs, the narrative sets a single horse in the town of Vranov nad Topl'ou, where Lale returns after the war. He has been home only briefly, and his sister Goldie has told him, "Don't come back without Gita." In the town, Lale asks everyone he sees with a horse, bike, car, or truck if he can buy it from them, and they all refuse. As he is starting to despair, an old man comes toward him in a small cart drawn by a single horse. Lale steps in front of the animal, forcing the man to rein it in, and blurts out that he would like to buy the horse and cart. The old man asks how much, and a short while later Lale pulls up outside his sister's house, proudly showing off his new means of transport. Goldie exclaims that she hasn't got anything for him to eat, and Lale points to the long grass, saying her front yard needs mowing.

The horse is a different kind of animal from the camp's dogs. It is not an instrument of terror but a means of escape, a way for Lale to leave his family home and go in search of Gita. That night, with the horse tethered in the front yard, Mrs. Molnar and Goldie set about making meals for Lale to take on his journey. He hates saying goodbye to them both so soon after arriving home, but they won't hear of him staying. As Lale climbs into the back of the cart, he is nearly thrown out by the horse taking off, and he looks back at the two women standing outside his family home, each with an arm around the other, smiling and waving. The horse carries him away from the past and toward the future, a living creature that serves not the SS but a man trying to reclaim his life and his love.

The contrast between the dogs and the horse is the contrast between two worlds. In the camp, animals are trained to bite, to corral, to bring people to the ground so that they can be shot. In the town, an animal is something to be bought and cared for, tethered in a front yard and fed with long grass. The dogs are the instruments of a regime that treats human beings as livestock, herded into cattle trains and marked with numbers. The horse is the instrument of a man who refuses to be treated that way, who steps in front of the animal and forces the old man to rein it in, who buys his way out of despair and toward the woman he loves. The narrative does not sentimentalize the horse—it is a practical purchase, a means of transport—but it is also a symbol of the world Lale is trying to return to, a world where animals and humans can coexist without violence.

The Animal as Witness and Mirror

The dogs of Auschwitz also function as a mirror of the prisoners' own animalization. Lale is transported in wagons designed to carry livestock, and the men are treated as cattle, packed so tightly that they cannot sit or lie down. When one prisoner, in a moment of dark humor, suggests they continue to act like cattle and eat the hay in their mattresses, a hesitant "Mooooooo" rises from deep in the dormitory, followed by quiet but real laughter. The officer, present but invisible, does not interrupt, and eventually the men fall asleep, stomachs rumbling. The moo is a moment of resistance through absurdity, a way of claiming the animal identity that has been forced on them and turning it into a joke. The dogs, by contrast, are the SS's animals, the ones that enforce the animalization rather than resist it. The prisoners are made to feel like cattle; the dogs are there to make sure they behave like cattle.

Lale's own relationship to animals is marked by this division. He arrives at the camp dressed in a pressed suit, clean white shirt, and tie, determined to dress to impress, and he clings to his suitcase, hoping that with the money and clothes he has, he might be able to buy himself out from wherever they are headed, or at the very least buy himself into a safe job. The dogs are part of the system that strips him of these hopes, that forces him to leave his suitcase on the ground and watch as small boys snatch up the abandoned belongings and throw them into trucks. The dogs are the teeth of the system, and the horse is the means of escape from it. In the end, the animal that carries Lale toward Gita is not a dog but a horse, and the difference is the difference between a world that dehumanizes and a world that allows a man to be human again.