The Tattooist’s Son: Journey to Auschwitz, a new Sky HISTORY documentary will feature international bestselling author Heather Morris. It is set to air in January 2025 when the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz will be commemorated.
The documentary is produced by Synchronicity Films, the production company behind the critically acclaimed Sky Original drama series The Tattooist of Auschwitz, an adaptation of Morris’s global bestselling novel of the same name on which she also served as a story consultant.
Filmed in Melbourne, Slovakia, and Poland, the one-off documentary will follow Gary Sokolov, the only son of Gita and Lale Sokolov (one of the real-life tattooists of Auschwitz), as he visits Auschwitz Concentration Camp for the first time.
Among others in the documentary, Gary will meet with Heather Morris; actors Jonah Hauer-King and Anna Próchniak, who portrayed his parents in the Sky Original drama; as well as Holocaust trauma psychiatrist George Halasz and 100-year-old Holocaust and Auschwitz survivor, Abram Goldberg, in his effort to understand the impact of Intergenerational Holocaust Trauma.
This marks the end to an extraordinary year for The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Heather Morris. Following the Emmy-nominated TV series released in May, The Tattooist of Auschwitz was launched back into the Sunday Times top ten bestsellers for seven straight weeks with an increase in sales of the title across all formats. And a monumental milestone was reached earlier this year when UK TCM Lifetime sales of Tattooist hit 1.5 million copies. More than 13 million copies of the book have been sold worldwide, with rights now sold in 52 territories.
Sarah Benton, MD Adult Trade at Bonnier Books UK said: ‘Everyone at Bonnier Books has been so proud to publish The Tattooist of Auschwitz for the last six years and 2024 has been phenomenal in terms of reaching even more readers than ever before. This new documentary will be another important part of the story as the world gets ready to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.’
One of the bestselling books of the 21st century, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is inspired by the real-life story of Lale and Gita Sokolov, who met while prisoners in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp during the Holocaust and fell in love. Morris met Sokolov in 2003 and wrote Tattooist based upon the hours of conversation they shared together. Their friendship was dramatized in the TV adaptation with Academy Award-nominee Harvey Keitel (The Irishman, Youth) and Critics Choice Awards winner Melanie Lynskey (The Last of Us, Yellowjackets), respectively starring as modern-day Lale and Heather. Actors Jonah Hauer-King (The Little Mermaid, World on Fire) and Anna Próchniak (Baptiste, Warsaw 44) took the lead roles of (young) Lale Sokolov and Gita Furman and Jonas Nay played Stefan Baretzki.