Everything To Know About The Peacock Limited Series The Tattooist of Auschwitz
The 6-part series, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, brings a heart-wrenching cinematic experience to the small screen.
The trailer for The Tattooist of Auschwitz begins with the words, “We must keep living,” as a young couple embraces against a nightmarish backdrop: the Nazi’s largest and most notorious concentration camp during the Holocaust. The Peacock limited series brings to life the vivid memories of an elderly Holocaust survivor, Lali Sokolov, who was imprisoned at Auschwitz during WWII and forced to work as a tätowierer, who tattooed identification numbers onto fellow prisoners’ arms.
Lali meets and falls in love with a young woman named Gita as he’s inking her arm, and the two navigate the horrors of their internment in a desperate quest to survive.
Ahead of all episodes of The Tattooist of Aschwitz dropping on Peacock, below is a rundown of everything there is to know about the upcoming limited series.
Is The Tattooist of Auschwitz Based on a Book?
The series was inspired by the novel of the same name, a global best-seller written by Australian author Heather Morris. In her book, she recounts the stories of real-life Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz tattooist Ludwig Sokolov, whom she met in 2003, where he lived in Australia for 58 years after surviving the horros of Auschwitz and the Nazi Holocaust. The book is based on years of interviews Morris conducted with Sokolov, and she shares more of his heart-wrenching life story in her best-selling follow-up novel, “Cilka’s Journey.”
Who stars in The Tattooist of Auschwitz?
Legendary actor Harvey Keitel plays an elderly Lali, who recounts his ordeal years later with writer Morris, portrayed by Melanie Lynskey (The Last of Us, Yellowjackets). The plot of the series is told through his remembrances, interweaving the present day with hauntingly real scenes of the extermination camp at the peak of the war. The filmmakers rebuilt Auschwitz in painstaking detail on a set in Slovakia, Lali's birthplace.
Jonah Hauer-King tackles the part of young Lali. He’s best known for his role as the dashing Prince Eric in Disney’s live-action version of The Little Mermaid and for appearing in the 2019 Holocaust drama The Song of Names. Producer Claire Mundell of Synchronicity Films said it was “important” to have Jewish actors portray the roles of both young and old Lali.
Hauer-King plays opposite up-and-coming Polish actress Anna Próchniak (Gita), a former ballerina who starred in the Oscar-nominated WWII-era French film The Innocents. Jonas Nay of the German TV series Deutschland 83 (and sequels Deutschland 86 and 89) takes on a role inspired by the real-life SS Officer Stefan Baretzki.
The original score was composed by two-time Oscar winner Hans Zimmer (Dune, The Lion King) and Kara Talve (Prehistoric Planet).
Directed and co-executive-produced by Tali Shalom-Ezer (The Psychologist), with producers and writers Jacquelin Perske and Evan Placey, the series is a co-production between Sky Studios and Peacock.
Where and when can I watch The Tattooist of Auschwitz?
The entire original limited series will be available on Thursday, May 2, when all six episodes will be released simultaneously on Peacock in the U.S.
British Sky Atlantic will stream the series on NOW for those in the UK and Ireland, Italy, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
