Lale's arrest and torture in Block 11

Lale's arrest and torture in Block 11 is the central crisis of his time in Auschwitz, the moment when his carefully maintained double life as the camp's Tätowierer and its most resourceful black-market operator collapses into violence. The event begins on a beautiful summer's day, when Lale, having parted from Gita, seeks out Leon and a few others from Block 7 to enjoy the sun and his friends while he can. They sit against the wall of one of the blocks, their conversation simple, until the sound of the siren sends Lale back to his own block. As he nears the building, he senses that something is wrong: the Romany children who usually run to meet him instead stand aside as he walks by, and when he greets them, they do not respond. He understands why immediately when he opens the door to his room. Displayed on his bed are the gems and currency from under his mattress, and two SS officers are waiting for him.

The Discovery and the March to Block 11

"Care to explain this, Tätowierer?" one of the officers asks, and Lale can find no words. One of the officers snatches his bag from his hands and empties his tools and ink bottles onto the floor, then puts the bounty into the bag. With pistols drawn, they face Lale squarely and motion for him to move. The children stand aside as Lale is marched out of the camp for what he believes will be the last time. He is taken to stand in front of Oberscharführer Houstek, the contents of his bag spread out over the officer's desk. Houstek picks up and examines each precious stone and piece of jewelry, one at a time, asking where Lale got it all. Lale answers that prisoners gave it to him, that they bring it to him but he does not ask their names. Houstek slams his fist on the desk, causing the gems to jangle. "This makes me very angry, Tätowierer. You are good at your job. Now I will have to find someone else to do it," he says, and turns to the escorting officers: "Take him to Block 11. He'll soon remember the names there."

Lale is marched out and placed in a truck, two SS officers sitting on either side of him, each ramming a pistol into his ribs. During the two-and-a-half-mile drive, Lale silently says goodbye to Gita and the future they were just imagining. Closing his eyes, he mentally says the names of each of his family members. He cannot picture his siblings as clearly as he used to, but his mother he can see perfectly, and he cannot say goodbye to her, the person who gave him breath and taught him how to live. He gasps as his father's image comes before him, causing one of the officers to push his pistol harder into his ribs. The last time he saw his father, he was crying, and he does not want this to be how he remembers him, so he searches for another image and comes up with his father working with his beloved horses, speaking warmly to them in contrast to the way he expressed himself to his children. He thinks of his brother, Max, older and wiser, and tells him he hopes he has not let him down, that he has tried to act as Max would have in his place. When he thinks of his little sister, Goldie, the pain is too much.

The Cell and the Unexpected Ally

Lale is placed in a small room in Block 11. The reputation of Blocks 10 and 11 is well known: they are the punishment blocks, and behind these secluded torture houses stands the Black Wall, the execution wall. Lale expects that he will be taken there after being tortured. For two days he sits in the cell, the only light coming in through a crack under the door, listening to the cries and screams of others while he relives every moment he has spent with Gita. On the third day, he is blinded by sunlight spilling into the room. A large man blocks the doorway and hands him a bowl of liquid. As his eyes adjust, Lale recognizes the man: "Jakub, is that you?" Jakub enters the room, the low ceiling forcing him to stoop, visibly shocked to see the Tätowierer there. Lale struggles to his feet, his hand outstretched, saying he often wondered what had happened to him. "As you predicted, they found work for me," Jakub says. "So you're a guard?" Lale asks. "Not just a guard, my friend," Jakub answers, his voice grim. "Sit and eat, and I will tell you what I do here and what will happen to you."

Apprehensively, Lale sits and looks at the food Jakub has given him: a thin, dirty broth containing a single piece of potato. Starving a few moments ago, he finds that his appetite has now left him. Jakub tells him he has never forgotten Lale's kindness, that he was sure he would die of starvation the night he arrived and there was Lale to feed him. Like Lale, Jakub says, he does what he has to do to survive. Then he delivers the terrible truth: "I am to beat you until you give me names. I am a killer, Lale." Lale shakes his hanging head, mutters every swear word he knows. "I have no choice," Jakub says. Mixed emotions race through Lale. Names of dead prisoners flit through his mind. Could he give Jakub those names? No, he decides, they will find out eventually, and then he will be back here again. But Jakub has his own plan: "The thing is," he says, "I can't let you give me any names." Lale stares, confused. "You were kind to me and I will make the beating look worse than it is, but I will kill you before I let you tell me a name. I want as little innocent blood on my hands as possible," Jakub explains. "Oh, Jakub. I never imagined this would be the work they found for you. I'm so sorry," Lale says. "If I must kill one Jew to save ten others, then I will," Jakub replies. Lale reaches his hand up to the large man's shoulder: "Do what you have to." Jakub turns away, instructing him to speak only in Yiddish, since he does not think the SS here know Lale or that he speaks German.

The Staged Beating

Jakub comes for Lale and drags him down a corridor to a small, windowless room. A single light bulb hangs from the ceiling, handcuffs dangle from a chain on the back wall, and a birch rod lies on the floor. Two SS officers talk together, seemingly oblivious to Lale's presence. He shuffles backward, not raising his eyes above the floor. Without warning, Jakub swings a punch into Lale's face, sending him stumbling back against the wall. The officers now pay attention. Lale attempts to stand. Jakub winds his right foot slowly back, and Lale anticipates the coming kick, backing away just as Jakub's foot connects with his ribs, then exaggerating the impact by rolling and heaving and clutching his chest. As he slowly rises, Jakub punches him in the face again, and he takes the full force this time, though Jakub had telegraphed his intention to hit him. Blood runs freely from his smashed nose. Jakub pulls Lale roughly to his feet and handcuffs him to the dangling chain, then picks up the birch, tears the shirt from Lale's back, and lashes him five times. He pulls Lale's trousers and underpants down and whips him across the buttocks five more times. Lale's yelps are not feigned. Jakub jerks Lale's head back and demands, "Give us the names of the prisoners who steal for you!" The officers look on, standing casually. Lale shakes his head, whimpering, "I don't know." Jakub strikes him ten more times, blood running down his legs. The two officers begin to pay more attention and step closer. Jakub jerks Lale's head back and snarls at him, "Talk!" Then he whispers in his ear, "Say you don't know and then faint," and louder, "Give us the names!" "I never ask! I don't know. You have to believe me—" Lale cries out. Jakub punches him in the stomach. He buckles at the knees, rolls his eyes back, and pretends to pass out. Jakub turns to the SS officers: "He is a weak Jew. If he knew the names, he would've told us by now." He kicks Lale's legs as he dangles from the chain. The officers nod and walk from the room.

Aftermath and Return

Jakub apologizes, helps Lale to his feet, carries him back to his room, and lays him on his stomach. "You did good. You'll need to sleep like this for a while. I'll come back later with some water and a clean shirt. Get some rest now," he says. Over the next few days, Jakub visits Lale each day with food, water, and the occasional change of shirt, reporting to Lale the extent of his injuries and that they are healing. Lale knows he will be marked for life, and reflects that perhaps the Tätowierer deserves that. The next day the door opens and Lale looks up to greet Jakub, but instead there are two SS officers. They indicate that Lale should get to his feet and come with them. Lale stays sitting as he tries to compose himself, wondering if this can be the end, if he is for the Black Wall. He silently says his goodbyes to his family and, last, to Gita. The SS become impatient, step into his room, and point their rifles at him. He follows them outside on trembling legs, feeling the sun on his face for the first time in more than a week, staggering along between the two officers. Looking up, preparing to meet his fate, he sees several other prisoners being bundled into a nearby truck. Maybe this isn't the end. His legs give out, and the officers drag him the remaining short distance. They throw him on and he doesn't look back, clinging to the side of the truck all the way to Birkenau. He is helped from the truck and dragged back into Houstek's office, the two SS officers each holding one of his arms.

The ordeal in Block 11 is the clearest test of the moral code Lale has built for himself in the camp. He has told Gita that he has been given the choice of participating in the destruction of his people and has chosen to do so in order to survive, hoping he is not one day judged a perpetrator or a collaborator. In the torture room, he refuses to give up a single name, even when offered the loophole of naming the dead, because he knows the SS will eventually find out and he will be back again. His survival depends on Jakub's mercy, a debt repaid from the night Lale fed a starving man on his arrival, and the staged beating becomes a strange act of solidarity between two men who both do what they must to survive. The scars Lale carries for life are the physical price of his refusal to betray, and the memory of the Black Wall, the cries and screams of others, and the face of his mother stays with him long after he leaves the cell. It is an event that reveals the deepest structure of the camp: the way survival and complicity are braided together, the way kindness can return years later in the form of a fake beating, and the way a man can be broken and yet remain unbroken in the only way that matters.