Abstract
This article explores the decision amongst the children and grandchildren of Auschwitz survivors to replicate the concentration camp number of their survivor family member on their own body. The article sheds new light on the complex intergenerational legacy of the Holocaust and on memorial practices. By focusing on the tattoo as a form of memorial practice, the article captures the intersections between the contemporary trend of tattooing and the concentration camp number as the visual symbol of the crimes of the Nazis. Drawing on data from qualitative interviews with 13 descendants of Holocaust survivors, the article considers motivations for getting the tattoo, conversations with the survivor parent or grandparent about the tattoo (if they were still alive), as well as the design and placement on the body. The decision to replicate the number was a statement about family relationships and was often a way of expressing love, legacy and continuity and pride. Some descendants who replicated the number, which had dehumanised and stigmatised their ancestor, saw it as a way of reclaiming. The tattoo also had a dialogical function, keeping family stories and histories alive as we enter the post-witness era. The sociological analysis is this article shows how personal lives are shaped by memories, as well as secrets and silences, and how they connect with history, relationships and identity. This article contributes to our understanding of the legacy of the Holocaust on families and family relationships and the corporeal impacts across generations.
Keywords
One of the most enduring visual representations of the crimes of the Nazi regime in 20th-century Europe is the tattoo placed on the left forearm of prisoners selected for work rather than immediate death after arrival and selection at Auschwitz. Most inmates had a tattoo on their arm and a matching number and code on their jacket. The Nazi practice of tattooing numbers on inmates dehumanised the bearer by taking away their identity. As Levi wrote, ‘you no longer have a name’, reflecting on his own experiences of being branded like ‘cattle’ (1986/2017, p. 104). This article explores the decision of the children and grandchildren of Auschwitz survivors to replicate the concentration camp number on their own body. Focusing on the tattoo as a memorial practice captures the tensions and intersections between the contemporary trend of tattooing, where the bearer of a tattoo often seeks to make a meaningful mark or sign for their body, and the abhorrence of the number as the visual symbol of the crimes of the Holocaust and the physical embodiment of suffering. Understanding the tattoo as a form of embodied memory practice sheds new and a different sociological light on the complex intergenerational legacy of collective trauma – in this case the Holocaust – where the human costs are not only transmitted across generations but also renegotiated and reworked.
There is still a surprising absence of research about the Holocaust in the sociological literature (Dallier, 2023; Gerson & Wolf, 2007). Comparing the work of historians and theologians, Bauman notes that ‘the contribution of professional sociologists to the Holocaust studies seems marginal and negligible’ (1988, p. 471). Bauman explored the ‘ghosts’ of the Holocaust among survivor descendants, who are ‘hereditary victims’ and always on the lookout for what he terms ‘a future slaughterhouse’ and ‘potential slaughters’ (2000, p. 12). Bauman argues that the Holocaust inheritance is largely imagined, and one that thrives through collective memory and through the identification of individuals as ‘Holocaust children’ (2000, p. 13). Where there is the chance of another Holocaust, homes become fortresses and neighbourhoods ghettos; this, argues Bauman, is ‘the greatest posthumous triumph of the
Generation is central to contemporary sociological analyses of the Holocaust. The concept of ‘generation’ – which in this article refers to a lineage connection between the parent(s) or grandparent(s), who are part of the migration generation, and their adult child or grandchild – is an important part of the analysis because where there has been trauma, it will be transmitted intergenerationally (Loizos, 2007). The experiences of the second generation, that is the children of survivors, are often presented as trying to piece together a story to go alongside the deep affect transferred by their parents. This transference can be verbal but is often non-verbal, taking physical forms like headaches and nightmares (Bloch, 2022; Hoffman, 2005, 2010; Stein, 2014). By contrast, Weissman notes that the third generation, that is the grandchildren of survivors, are more troubled by the absence of the Holocaust than its ‘traumatic impact’ (2004, p. 22). The greater distance from the original trauma, both in terms of family relations but also temporally, means that the third generation piece together their family histories from ‘incomplete, oblique, cryptically coded, and elusive knowledge . . . weaving together the strands of stories’ (Aarons & Berger, 2017, p. 9). However fragmented the story, it is still part of an individual’s identity, and identities are developed and shaped by understanding our narrative histories. The Auschwitz number tattooed on the body of survivor descendants can form part of that identity formation (Fruh & Thomas, 2012) where, over time, the number no longer represents the loss of personhood but instead has become a badge of honour (Schult, 2017).
The meaning of the Auschwitz tattoo has changed since 1945, reflecting the distinct periods of Holocaust memorialisation. These different historical contexts are important in relation to public memory practices, but these practices also affect the personal lives of survivors and their families (Bloch, 2022). In the immediate postwar period, survivors were stigmatised (Schult, 2017) but over time, survivors and their number tattoo has become ‘the heroic mark of survival and of bearing witness for others’ (Hutter, 2016, p. 284). The original Holocaust number was forced on the bearer – which was historically the case in relation to penal tattoos, branding as markers of criminality as well as for purposes of indentured and enslaved labour (Tyler, 2020). Tattoos, argues Tyler (2020), can therefore form part of an imposed stigmatised identity located within wider social and political structures. In the case of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex, the number removed the boundary between human and animal (Agamben, 2004; Levi, 1986/2017). Kluger, in her autobiographical book, describes waiting in a line while female prisoners, sitting at tables with the necessary equipment, do their job of tattooing ID numbers on the left arms of prisoners. Kluger observed, using an animal analogy like Levi (1986/2017), that the ‘victims’ skin saved the Nazis from producing dog tags’ (2001, p. 98). Kluger then goes on record how strange it was that the armpits of the SS were ‘decorated’ with tattoos, noting it was the ‘same procedure for honor and shame, if one chose to choose these perspectives’ (2001, p. 98).
The dehumanisation, of which the number formed a part, reflected the Nazi propaganda that depicted Jews, Roma and Sinti and other enemies of the state as vermin and therefore ‘killable species’ (Williams, 2022, p. 198). For survivor descendants, who replicate the number, the tattoo has been described as a trauma tattoo where the tattoo ‘signifies a wound’ (Brouwer & Horwitz, 2015, p. 538). Explaining the intergenerational differences, Hutter describes how,
The survivor’s body as the original conduit of pain and torture testifies to unspeakable horrors, but . . . since the crime did not occur on the body of the second-generation witness, it can mediate memory. The second-generation witness is not a passive conduit or victim, but rather chooses to speak. (2016, p. 272)
This choosing to speak and using the body as a way of speaking is part of reclaiming and commemorating. For the children and grandchildren of survivors, the progenic tattoo is a statement of narrative identity and the body is a living canvas where choices are made over the design and the positioning. These choices are often imbued with bodily markers of class and/or community identity, especially where they are one tattoo among others that symbolise other aspects of the bearer’s identity. The demographic of persons with tattoos has changed with the ‘tattoo renaissance’ (Rubin, 1988). Tattoos are no longer a signifier of the marginalised, the criminalised and the stigmatised, and are also less associated with specific masculine working-class occupations. In the late 20th century, as middle-class communities have adopted tattoos, so too have the aesthetics of tattoos changed to reflect middle-class tastes (DeMello, 2000). Seeking out a meaningful mark or sign on the body through a commemorative tattoo depicts and signifies a relationship and heritage, in this case a Holocaust identity. The physical act of getting a tattoo is also an act of remembrance (Martel, 2016) and one that involves pain, as the process of tattooing is a physical one involving the piercing of the skin (Cadell et al., 2022). Tattoos last as long as the bearer lives (unless they are removed or covered up) and while the progenic tattoo might be a commemorative act, it is one that ensures continuity and legacy.
Memorial tattoos are also a way through which to express the life story, an ‘external scar’ that represents the internal one (Buckle & Corbin Dwyer, 2023, p. 4). Back alerts us to the need to be mindful of the ‘embodied social life that operates outside of talk’, including what is written on the body (2007, p. 95). This non-verbal visual embodiment of the survivor’s number can be a powerful and painful way to communicate family relationships, to keep the memory alive, to honour a legacy and recognise trauma through non-verbal expressions of love. This article makes an original contribution to the literature by exploring, through in-depth interviews, the sociological connections between the Holocaust and its enduring legacy on families and generations and on the body as it becomes a site through which to express memory, identity and relationships.
The empirical data used in this article derive from in-depth interviews with 13 descendants of Holocaust survivors who have replicated their survivor ancestor’s tattoo on their own body. Nine interviews were with the grandchildren and four were with the children of survivors. All of those interviewed had grown up in Israel, although two interviewees now live outside of Israel. The context of Israel is important, because the Holocaust is embedded in the narratives of postwar state formation that brings particular cultural meanings to Holocaust narratives and survivor identities (Jacobs, 2016). Holocaust Memorial Day, Holocaust education, diaspora tourism and visiting Holocaust museums are often cited as a trigger for grandchildren to engage with ‘private’ family memories, and these activities bring the public into the private and the private into the public (Bloch, 2022; Kidron, 2021). In Israel, a high school trip to Poland, which includes a visit to Auschwitz and the ghettos, just before entering military service, have a specific political function that reinforces the Israeli nation and nationalist values (Feldman, 2002). Among some of those interviewed, this trip to Poland was a pivotal moment both in terms of family disclosures and discussions about the Holocaust and in terms of their decision to replicate the number in the form of a tattoo. The article presents the perspectives of those who have replicated the tattoo using a thematic analysis; most people have not replicated their ancestor’s number and their views would offer other perspectives on the practice.
The interviews loosely followed the genealogy of the tattoo, from first noticing it on their parent or grandparent and conversations about the number, right through to thinking about getting the number, the placement and design of the tattoo, the physical and emotional act of getting the tattoo, reactions from others and then reflections since having it done. Eleven out of the 13 interviewers were carried out on Zoom. Five interviewees were identified because they had been interviewed in a newspaper article or had a web presence and so were in the public domain, and the remaining interviewees were contacted through researcher networks and snowballing and this included one person who acted as a gatekeeper for his brother, both of whom had their grandmother’s number on their body. With the exception of Reuben and Sara, which are pseudonyms, the other interviewees wanted to be called by their names and in some cases their family name as well, although in this article I have used only first names. It was striking how interviewees wanted to share their stories, photographs of their tattoos and for the most part did not want to be anonymous. Prior to the fieldwork the project received ethical approval from the university ethics committee.
Decision to replicate the number in the form of a tattoo
The decision among survivor descendants, to replicate the number, was sometimes done after communication and discussion with the survivor while they were alive, sometimes it was just done and then presented to the survivor and other family members, and on some occasions the decision was made to have the tattoo after the survivor had died. Regardless of when the number was replicated and the discussions that may or may not have taken place in advance, there were clear themes that emerged around love, cherishing the person, about keeping the memory alive and honouring the heroism and the legacy of the survivor. There was also an awareness of the generational shifts that were taking place as we enter the post-witness era as survivors are few in number.
Reuben, the son of a Holocaust survivor, described his decision to get the tattoo as ‘an emotional decision’ and a ‘passionate one’. The decision was made when his father was in hospital with a tumour and they thought there was little time left with him. Reuben explains the power of the visual and physical gesture – one of love – in the absence of the spoken word:
I thought . . . before he goes I wanted to give him a message that I could not give in words, words are not enough sometimes, and I wanted to let him know that he’s not alone, that around him are people who love him and understand what weight he’s carrying, . . . and in that sense share with you the load . . . I [came] up with the idea that sharing the number would convey the message.
Reuben’s father was very against him doing the number on his body and ‘was furious’ with him for doing it because,
. . . he doesn’t want me to carry this burden or this memory, he wants me to have a good life and he thinks that this would make it hard for me to have a good life because it’s as if I’m importing his trauma.
The conveying of love through this non-verbal gesture had a long history and was a reflection of the ways in which Reuben’s father divided his responses to the Holocaust during his life course According to Reuben, ‘you could never get him to enter the other side of his memories which was the emotional side’ until they visited Auschwitz, where the memories were so visceral that everything changed. Reuben explains how,
. . . the minute he set foot in Auschwitz he suddenly remembered that smell and everything came out, everything emotional came out.
For several years his father did interviews for radio and TV, but once he accessed the emotional part of his memory he started suffering the physical manifestations of trauma and Reuben explained how,
. . . we understood that we have to let him shut it down again, but we had a window of a few years.
Responses to trauma are often silence and retreat into the depth of the psyche but they still ‘haunt the victim’ (Stein, 2014, p. 3). Survivors might manage identities in different ways, at different times and with different people (Stein, 2011). For Reuben, once his father had closed off the emotional parts, replicating the number on his body became the vehicle through which Reuben communicated his feelings, support, understanding and togetherness for and with his father.
For Zeev the trip to Poland, which included a visit to the camps, was when he first thought about a Holocaust memorial tattoo. Before the trip to Poland, Zeev talked with his mother to get additional details including information about the block where his grandmother slept. On arrival, he discovered that the block was actually not in Auschwitz 1 but in Auschwitz II also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was where around 90% of those who died in Auschwitz were murdered and where the gas chambers operated. On making his discovery Zeev called his mother and explained that,
. . . my grandmother was a Birkenau survivor . . . it was a surprise to my mum because my grandmother always told my mum, I’ve been in Auschwitz . . . I’m making the history of my mum. It like was a secret.
Zeev then went to Birkenau and found the remains of the block his grandmother had slept in. Zeev called his mother again and described it as ‘a little bit of closure’ because Zeev, the grandchild of a survivor, walked on the soil ‘where she [his grandmother] survived and [then] continued the generations’. By going to Poland, Zeev had created new family narratives through which new stories have evolved and have become part of his family history. In many ways, Zeev’s family illustrates how it might be possible to know the historical narrative of the Holocaust but, as Aarons and Berger argue, ‘[it is] another thing, to find the individuated particulars of personal and distinct family histories’ (2017, p. 8). There are so many ways that family stories are told or revealed, and for Zeev, like others, visiting Poland and the camps showed how place can be central to these evolutions (Ali, 2012; Bloch, 2018).
After the trip, Zeev felt many emotions and this sparked his decision to get a memorial tattoo, which was the first of many tattoos on his body. The tattoo is a large Star of David on his back, which he describes as,
. . . bones, flesh and a lot of clothes, like the Holocaust survivors . . . because they were so skinny and you can see the flesh.
In the following quote Zeev describes his decision to get his grandmother’s number tattooed on his body:
I will never forget this trip [to Poland] so it’s on my back now. After a few years I just wanted to be more specific about my grandmother . . . I called my mum and my brother to remind me what was the number of my grandmother’s tattoo . . . I go to the tattoo artist, I told him this is for my grandmother, I’m a third-generation of a Holocaust survivor. I think it’s the most beautiful tattoo ever.
Underneath his grandmother’s number, Zeev had the words ‘Never Forget’ written in English. He described the tattoo commemorating his grandmother as ‘a memorial on live flesh’, reflecting the idea of the body as a living canvas.
Zeev had tattoo sleeves and included in these were several Viking themed tattoos which he said he was connected to culturally as in the family narrative was Viking strength and he wanted tattoos that he felt culturally connected to. Zeev’s Jewish and Holocaust heritage were very visible: as well as the large Star of David on his back, Zeev also had an additional one covering his elbow. Zeev described himself as ‘addicted’ to tattoos and while physically getting one he said he was already thinking about the next one. For Zeev, the tattoo offered a counternarrative symbolising strength, rather than weakness, because his grandmother survived and had a family, and Zeev being able to replicate her number was an ‘honour’ indicting her ‘success’ and her ‘legacy’.
One of the stigmatising narratives of European Jewry was that they went to their deaths as weak and passive victims, like lambs to the slaughter, and who, in the postwar period, were seen as either feminised and passive or as Nazi collaborators (Lentin, 2001). The number tattooed on their arm was an observable sign for others making them visible as survivors, and for some, this was part of their stigmatised identity. For Sara, the stigma her father had felt about the number was very evident. Sara explained how for years he covered it up with long sleeves because ‘he was not proud of the number’. Over time the meaning of the number has changed and some survivors, notes Hutter, ‘no longer see their tattoo as the stigma of a victim, but rather the “mark of a hero”’ (2016, p. 283). Both the historical stigma and the badge of honour are based on social relations and the perceptions and responses of other people. Sara recounted how people laughed when they saw her father’s number and it was only then that she really became aware of it, as child coming from postwar Europe, and feeling different from her classmates at school.
Sara got her father’s number tattooed on her body the day he died, though she had broached the subject of getting the number on her body before he died when he was in hospital. According to Sara, ‘he was so angry at me’ and said, ‘never do it, don’t do it’. Sara thinks one of the reasons she did it so quickly was because he was so against it. According to Sara,
The minute he died I didn’t think about anything. I just went Tel Aviv and ask[ed] them to make the number and I was afraid about it, that I did something that really before he died he told me not to do but I knew that I have to do it.
Sara felt compelled to replicate the number, explaining that it was because she loved him, because she wanted to keep the family name, as he was the last one in the line with the family name, and for the memory of her family. Sara then went on to say, ‘I’m proud that I did it’. Equating the number with the continuation of the family name, which given that the number in the context of the Holocaust depersonalised the individual, quite literally taking away their name, this feels like a powerful reclaiming and speaks to continuing bonds (Cadell et al., 2022), to intergenerational memory and trauma and the relationship of the descendant to that trauma (Brouwer & Horwitz, 2015).
For the descendants of survivors, the number, which is an embodiment of something that happened to someone else, has profoundly affected their life in ways that can be hard to understand and can be harder still to articulate (Hirsch, 2008). The decision to replicate the number is a statement about family and family relationships but also interviewees’ own specific relationship to the Holocaust. Using the concept of post-memory, which refers to inherited memories that are so powerful that it is almost as though the person has lived the experience themselves, Hirsch (2008) notes that where there has been huge trauma such as the Holocaust,
Loss of family, of home, of a feeling of belonging and safety in the world ‘bleed’ from one generation to the next. (2008, p. 112)
The idea of bleeding is so central to getting a tattoo, where, Hutter notes, the body provides,
. . . a canvas for the painful memories of others’ but also a mode through which memory is communicated and this can hurt. (2016, p. 273)
A generational analysis is necessary in order to understand the effects of families and socialisation alongside the changing societal attitudes and values that surround the Holocaust (Chaitin, 2002). Generation is central to post-memory but it is also an important reason for getting the tattoo as it represents a form of intergenerational memory practice as we enter the post-witness era. For Yair, replicating the number was significant because,
. . . the people with [a] number on their hands are fewer and fewer . . . and there will be a time which no-one will be with [the] number.
Yair spoke to his father, who was like so many of the other survivors against their child or grandchild getting the number on their body. After talking about it for a few years, his father eventually agreed. According to Yair, ‘after the wound cured and everything was OK, I showed him’. His father cried but was also excited. Like others, Yair wanted to talk about the number not hide it away, saying,
It’s very good because all the time, at least once a week, somebody ask[s] me what is this number and I told them and people really got very emotional when they hear the story, about the number and the Holocaust.
This generational element was something that David talked about when reflecting on his decision to replicate his grandmother’s number on his own body, as well the need to memorialise. This commemoration was important to David: the number tattoo was a way to talk about his grandmother, the Holocaust and to ensure that the tattoo serves as a reminder and a topic of conversation for the fourth generation, his children.
I think more and more third generation people are getting the number . . . we are probably the last generation to speak about this . . . I’m the last generation to hear the stories from that person that was in the Holocaust . . . The conversation needs to continue.
David had been thinking about getting a tattoo for 10 years before he finally when through with it. He got his tattoo after his grandmother had died, describing her death as ‘a trigger’. Before getting the tattoo David did a Google search to check he would not be ‘the first crazy person to decide to do something like that’. David also asked people’s views, understanding that people see the number tattoo in different ways. According to David, those who had a Holocaust history understood why he was thinking about it, while those that did not ‘see it as a terrible thing’. After getting his tattoo David had a number of different responses even from within his family, which he describes as follows:
So my mom and my brother were okay . . . my auntie was scared a bit because of anti-semitism . . . and other people just never spoke to me since . . . cousins. Everyone, everyone sees it in a different way. It doesn’t matter what you do in life, there will always be someone who disagrees with what you do. You can’t please everyone. We have like a family WhatsApp group with all the cousins, the aunties and uncles and so on. So I just added at some point, just put the picture there, and just [said] nothing, and it just went quiet, completely.
David said that he had expected the responses he got, but once he told his mother and brother he also knew that everyone would find out so he decided to put it on the family WhatsApp to ‘see what happens’.
Hagar had her grandfather’s number tattooed on her left forearm. The Holocaust was constantly present in Hagar’s life as she had a recurring dream/nightmare since she was a young child about camp selection and Nazis with whips trying to catch Jewish prisoners. For Hagar the ghosts and hauntings described by Bauman (2000) were there in dreams. Though her grandfather did not talk to his children about the Holocaust, determined that they had a normal life, the high school trip to Poland lead to the sharing of photographs with her grandfather, which opened new dialogue, something that is a recurring theme in the generational analysis of the Holocaust (Kidron, 2009). The idea of getting the tattoo was not new for Hagar, who explained that,
I was always thinking that I want to make the tattoo of his number. I didn’t have the guts to do it while he was still alive because he would never accept it.
Hagar’s son had a serious and life threatening accident. He pulled through and was out of danger on her grandfather’s birthday, which Hagar saw as a sign. Throughout Hagar’s life, she described feeling his presence in a spiritual way during significant moments. She asked her son to write her grandfather’s number on a piece of paper and took it to the tattooist, who replicated the handwriting and number on her left forearm – doing it ‘in gratitude for him being there for her’ (Brutin, 2021, p. 23). For Hagar, having her grandfather’s number on her arm in her son’s handwriting was a way to bridge the ‘past and future’ on her body and a way to ‘remember always where you come from’. The number, for Hagar and others, signified survival, legacy, continuity and memory.
Itay, who had replicated his grandmother’s number, described it as a ‘fingerprint’, highlighting the uniqueness of it, as she had been the only one with that number. Tattoos usually die with the bearer, but by replicating the number, the tattoo no longer dies, but continues with the body acting as a site of identity (DeMello, 2000). For Itay, replicating it on his body was both an act of ‘cherishing her’ because it is permanent and a way of giving her something and in his own words, ‘better than silverware’. Survivors usually arrived with nothing, everything had been stolen, and so the reference to silverware, often a family heirloom, almost turns the number into an heirloom, a form of continuity, an inheritance. However, for Itay it was also ‘a reminder or a pointer for myself to try and never be a victim of circumstances’. Itay mentions love for his grandmother alongside the personal lesson of not being a victim, which in some ways chimes with the stigma and othering of survivors as archetypical victims, as mentioned earlier (Lentin, 2001).
I treated this gesture and this number as . . . the triumph of pure goodness over pure evil . . . When I was doing this number I had like a very cynical, maybe childish thought that [the] guy who tattooed that number on my grandma would never believe that this number would outlive him by so many, many years . . . but if I know my son would tattoo that particular number again, it’s kind of way to break the skin, because my grandmother, like many, many Jews in the Holocaust was a scratch from being murdered. Many, many times. Not just once. And so I think that there’s a magic in that number . . .
Bauman writes about the ghost of the Holocaust as something that is ‘self-perpetuating and self-producing’ (2000, p. 14). The body, for some, becomes one of many ways through which the process of continuance takes place. Itay uses the word ‘triumph’ not just of goodness over evil but it is also a triumph that the number will have outlasted the person who tattooed it onto his grandmother. That person would have not only assumed her death but with her death the death of any future generations, so no legacy. Itay also looks to the future and his son; his grandmother had no ancestors but had descendants. Itay talks about the breaking of the skin when you get a tattoo. Finally, the use of the word ‘scratch’ in the context of the proximity to death and the physical act of getting a tattoo is very powerful and evocative. Kidron et al. (2019) noted that most descendants of survivors described themselves as scratched. This scratch is commemorative and is a carrier of ‘collective memory’ (Kidron et al., 2019, p. 4). The scratch is to reproduce the scar in the next generation as a ‘socially valorized marker of collective trauma’ (Kidron et al., 2019, p. 5). Itay’s use of the word ‘scratch’ becomes even more suggestive in relation to tattooing and the bleeding that takes place when the skin is broken.
Positioning and design of the number tattoo
Tattoos, especially memorial tattoos, can be about continuing bonds (Cadell et al., 2022) and the embodied statement of these bonds, making them a method of biographical and autobiographical practice (Letherby & Davidson, 2015). Writing about tattoos on their own body, Thompson explains how ‘viewer impression management became a part of my daily life’ (2015, p. 5) because the placement of the tattoo can make it a public or a more private act. The position of the tattoo results in different impacts (Roberts, 2015). When visible, tattoos can require an explanation from the bearer to the observer who enquires about the images on the tattooed body and they cause people to take notice (Buckle & Corbin Dwyer, 2023). Among those interviewed, eight had placed the number in the same or very similar position as their survivor relative on their left forearm, two had it on the right forearm arm and three had the number on other parts of their body (ankle, calf and chest). Only two people chose an identical replica of the original number, and both were the children of survivors, while others had either a different font and/or a more elaborate tattoo. Rony also replicated the position of her grandmother’s number but in her own handwriting. I asked her about the positioning, and she said,
I wanted it to be like the original . . . this is where they get the tattoo, on the left . . . I want it to be noticed and understandable . . . no one should doubt it, what it is exactly.
Talking about her grandmother Rony said,
. . . it’s nothing complicated it was just there . . . it is just a number it is just something that they did and today it doesn’t mean anything.
Describing her own emotions when getting the tattoo Rony used the word ‘proud’, and later on in the interview, she elaborated on another aspect of being proud, linking it to the past and to the future saying,
I was proud to take her with me. To take this story with me, to take like her childhood, her missing her parents . . . those moments are in this number, you know . . . meaningful moments are carried in this number, horrible number.
Being proud of the survivor was something that not only influenced getting the number but also the design. Ori had the number on the right arm on the palm side of the arm above the wrist and so less visible than on a forearm because she did not want it on view all the time. Next to her grandfather’s number was a Star of David, which was very significant. Ori grew up on a kibbutz where her grandfather had also lived, and she described growing up in the ‘shadow of the Holocaust’. After school she and her friends would go to her grandfather’s house and open the drawer to look at and touch the objects he had brought with him from Europe to Israel, which were the yellow Star of David that had to be sewn onto clothes and a knife which she described as ‘the Nazi knife’ that he stole. Both were what Kidron (2009, p. 15) describes as souvenirs from the ‘death-world’ and these souvenirs become a normalised part of everyday family life. Kidron, transposing Bourdieu’s (1989) concept of habitus, notes,
. . . as embedded and perpetuated social stratification, survivor practices embed the corporeal experience and strategic scenarios of survival . . . the network of habitual Holocaust-related practices tightly weaves the presence of the past into the daily fabric of domestic life. (2009, p. 15)
The yellow Star of David was significant not only as an object but also as part of an intergenerational family story. When I asked Ori why she had included the Star of David on her arm next to the number she explained its significance, saying,
My great grandfather told my grandfather to be proud of the yellow Star of David that he had to go with. So, I don’t see in this number anything sad. I see it as a symbol of continuity and pride.
By including the Star of David as part of the tattoo, Ori alludes to generations and to pride. Pride in the number and the ancestor can be a powerful way to counteract the shame and stigma that some survivors had experienced, in an act of reclaiming. Ori also uses the word ‘continuity’ and the idea of continuity influenced the design and the reason for getting the number. Ori’s grandfather was the only survivor among his family and grew up without parents or siblings. Before doing the tattoo Ori needed her grandfather to agree to it and explains how she convinced him by talking about keeping the memory alive in the post-witness era:
I told him ‘Saba [grandfather] I really want to do the tattoo’, and he said ‘Why?’ He look[ed] at me like why they made me to do it. And I said, ‘but I look on that as something we won and . . . some day when you will not be here I want that someone remembers that’.
There were members of Ori’s family who found the tattoo problematic because they were orthodox and cannot therefore have tattoos. She describes the family divide in the following way:
I told him I want to do the tattoo and my father said, ‘Do it, like I’m not happy, do whatever you want’ . . . in the beginning it was hard, my family they’re split [between] very orthodox and non-orthodox, so orthodox they’re not allowed to make a tattoo . . . so they didn’t agree with my opinion but I think that today they understand my thinking . . . and why I made that [number].
Like Ori, continuity and survival were important to Orly when designing her tattoo. Orly had her grandfather’s number in a green vine with leaves and at the tip of the vines she had the initials of her husband and children. Orly said she did this design because,
I like nature very much and when I look around at it also and I see the leaves and the grass, it’s nice for me . . . not just a number.
Orly has the design on her right forearm and one of the reasons for this was because she did not want it on the same side as her heart. Although the number was her grandfather’s, it was very much done with her grandmother in mind. Orly’s grandmother, also a survivor, had not been tattooed in Auschwitz because she had not been expected to live. Her grandmother was 93 when I interviewed Orly in 2022 and when I asked her about her reasons for getting the tattoo she also stressed the dialogical function. A tattoo is a way of opening up discussion as well as dispelling fear and combatting stigma (Brouwer, 1998). For Orly, the number and tattoo design offered,
. . . an opportunity to say my grandmother’s stories . . . so that’s the reason to start the talking . . . Maybe that day nobody talked about the Holocaust you know but they see the tattoo, so it starts the conversation and that’s the purpose. The talking is going on.
For David, when thinking about the design of his tattoo, a consideration was how he would explain its meaning if people asked. David had a more elaborate tattoo and, like Orly, a tattoo that was in colour. The colour was important for David, because,
. . . if you’re doing something that’s black and white, it just seems so dark. Colour just means more positive in essence. Something that’s coming up.
This idea of survival and new life from the depths of horror – forward looking not just backwards – is clear in these descriptions. David’s tattoo included his grandmother’s number written on a piece of wood and next to the number was a Star of David. David wanted a tattoo with meaning and that could tell a story. David included the wood because it was how ‘they used to tattoo on the arm’. Around the wood and cutting across it are spikey leaves that look like barbed wire and on the edges are seven flowers – some flourishing and some withered. The flowers represent his grandmother and her six siblings and in his design the spikes have ‘turned into flowers’ and so ‘it’s taking the bad thing and creating it as a good thing’. The four opened flowers are his grandmother and her surviving sisters, the closed ones represent the two sisters that were killed, and there is a lone flower at the bottom, which is in memory of the brother who was also killed.
Eyal also chose a design that represented an important story of survival but, unlike Orly’s, it did not contain imaging or referencing to the future, except his own imperative to never forgive and never forget. On Eyal’s left forearm was his grandmother’s number and above the number was a bar code. According to Eyal,
The bar code is a real bar code of potato packet sold in the supermarket because my late grandmother when she was in Auschwitz she worked with the Germans in the kitchen, and she would steal the potato peelings – she peeled for two years and that’s how she fed herself and two other girls who were with her in the same bunk. This is how she survived that nightmare and will we never forgive and never forget those survivors.
According to Eyal the tattoo was also for his grandmother’s family that did not survive and for his ‘very heroic grandmother’. Growing up Eyal knew not to ask questions and was conscious of the protective ring around his grandmother, explaining this and the shame that she felt in the following way,
. . . when I talked to my mother she was always worried about me asking my grandmother too many questions because she knew she was very ashamed of it. Deep down, my grandmother thought they were to blame, for going like sheep to the slaughter.
Eyal did not get his grandmother’s number replicated on his body until after she had died, saying,
She would never accept such a thing. She was kind of ashamed of it. Wore long sleeves most of the time to hide her tattoo.
I spoke with three people who had tattoos on less visible places. Two were brothers: Itay, who had the number on the back of the left calf with the number written vertically, and Or, who had the number on his chest across his ribs. Both Itay and Or tattooed their grandmother’s number on their bodies when she was still alive. Both brothers reflected on the differences between themselves choosing the design and placement of the tattoo and their grandmother’s experiences of being forcibly tattooed on her arm. Or got his tattoo before Itay and they both said how angry their grandmother was with Or, although by the time Itay got his tattoo she was less annoyed. According to Itay,
When I did mine, the reaction was much milder. She said, ‘Didn’t we say we were cancelling that idea?’ Or something like that. ‘We’re dropping it’, that was her reaction. But you know, I did get a lot of reactions about that tattoo.
The first reaction Itay got was from the tattoo artist, after he asked for the number on his leg, which he describes in the following way,
I said to the [person] who came with me, I said, ‘This guy just tattooed a huge dragon on somebody’s back, or a vulture.’ And I’m saying you know, 60 centimetres long or something like that. And this little number got him you know almost pale and he said, ‘Are you sure?’ and I said, ‘Yes of course.’
When I asked Itay about the positioning of the number, this is how he responded:
You know the first thought was the left hand . . . I instantly cancelled that [idea] because, ‘Listen’ I said to myself, ‘Listen’, I said. ‘You weren’t in Auschwitz and so putting on your hand is a bit, it’s out of place. Almost inappropriate.’ . . .‘Okay then let’s go with a left leg’ . . . it’s on the back of my [leg] you know where the muscle is not where the bone is, just like all my tattoos because I’m trying to kind of hide them from myself.
For Itay tattoos were ‘something internal and not something external’. This idea of the tattoo being for the wearer or bearer and not the outside world was also something that Sara felt when she decided to have the tattoo on the back of her ankle, on the left side so it shared authenticity with the original on her father’s left arm. Sara thought the back of the ankle was a good place as it was mostly covered up with long trousers and so she said, ‘No one will see it . . . it’s between me and me’.
Itay’s younger brother, Or, had placed his grandmother’s number across his ribs on the left side of his chest. According to Or the placement and design were his own choice and different from his grandmother’s,
. . . because I am not a victim who did the tattoo, I’m a brave Jewish man who did the tattoo by choice.
One of the reasons for placing it across his ribs was because,
. . . people told me this is the most hurtful place to do a tattoo . . . Every tattoo is a challenge; I mean to consume the pain.
Though getting a tattoo is painful, survivors did not want pain for their descendants. Reuben’s father did not want him to ‘import his trauma’. When Rony showed her grandmother her arm, with the number tattooed on it, her grandmother reacted by saying ‘no’ repeatedly and then wanted to know if getting the tattoo hurt her granddaughter. The protection, the care and the love worked in all generational directions, and for the descendants were evidenced on the skin.
Final reflections
The article has shown how the Holocaust has an intergenerational family legacy that works in different and complex ways. Where descendants replicate the number on their own body they are often doing it against the expressed wishes of the survivor parent or grandparent, or doing it without telling them, or waiting until they had died, making the act of replicating the tattoo a powerful statement of continuing bonds and an almost subversive act based on love and pride and the imperative not to forget. Family relationships around the number varied and there were critical voices among some family members about the decision to replicate the number.
The relationship to the number tattooed on the body of the survivor differed, certainly in terms of how it was received and communicated about by and to their children and grandchildren. This ranged from an unspoken but agreed code of silence between generations to keep the trauma away from the everyday (Wiseman et al., 2016) to being happy to answer questions and not hiding it and, as noted in the case of Reuben’s father, being able to speak at some points during his life but shutting down to manage the pain at other times. Tattoos can be a way of keeping a person close (Cadell et al., 2022) but when they become the symbol of such an unimaginable atrocity, their meaning is a complex web of love, pain, identity, memory, the past and the future.
Reasons for replicating the tattoo are individual but there are connections because they commemorate a legacy, pride and love. The tattoo also conveys a message on the body etched with pain and with blood. The painful process of getting a tattoo physically links the descendant to the trauma of their parent or grandparent. The number that dehumanised those in Auschwitz is reclaimed and now signifies a relationship with the descendant and a way of remembering and talking about the Holocaust. For the children and grandchildren there were choices about whether or not to have the number but also in the design and the placement on the body. As we enter the post-witness era, the experiences of survivors recounted through stories handed down through families are becoming patchier and more distant (Aarons & Berger, 2017). The number can be one way to ensure that questions are asked, and stories are narrated. Not everyone wants to talk and so placing the number somewhere more hidden on the body can keep it private and personal.
The sociological analysis is this article shows how personal lives are shaped by memories, as well as secrets and silences, and how they connect with history, relationships and identity. Kuhn notes that memory ‘is a process, an activity’ (2010, p. 298). Thinking about getting the number tattooed, the negotiations, the physical act of getting it and the discussions afterwards reflect the kinetic nature of memory and memorial practices and of family relationships to the Holocaust. The article highlights how family relationships and the connections to the Holocaust vary across generations. Ultimately, the legacy, the ghosts and the hauntings of the Holocaust live on (Bauman, 2000) and a generational lens is necessary in order to understand how they change over time. As we enter the post-witness era, there are few survivors left with the bodily scar of the number that has played such a visual and powerful role in keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive. As Mwambari and Sibomana note in relation to the Rwandan genocide, the marks and scars of swords and machetes ‘communicate trauma and keep memories of the mass violence vivid in public and private realms (2023, p. 1), much like the serial number tattooed on Auschwitz survivors. However, it is important to explore not only the body as a canvas for commemoration, but also the shifting and intergenerational nature of such processes. By replicating the number, and scarring their own body, later generations rework the meaning of past events, by keeping the scar visible and the conversation alive, in the very act of honouring those who lived through those events. Sociological research has much to contribute to our understanding of the legacy of the Holocaust on families and family relationships and the corporeal impacts across generations. The article shows how the human costs of the Holocaust quite literally seep through the bloodlines conveying survival, love, identity, memory and pain.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Wendy Bottero and Imogen Tyler for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of the article.
Funding
This research draws on research funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Small Research grant in partnership with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.