aggression, especially from the Kapo and other functionary prisoners. Additionally, the SS men treated them more leniently. They also often had passes that allowed them to move around the camp as much as their duties warranted, and thus the chance to acquire extra food or other valuable items - although this did not mean the kind of freedom to move and stay in different sections of the camp, offices and barracks, as we see in the series. In light of the above, they were referred to as camp VIPs. However, they certainly did not have separate rooms - there were such rooms in every block and barracks, but they were intended only for the most important functionary prisoners who directly supervised their fellow inmates: block leaders and kapos. All the more so, no KL Auschwitz prisoner had the privilege of living alone in an empty barrack. Moreover, it is particularly unfeasible for Lali to have been placed in Sector BIIe in 1942, as this sector was still under construction and not entirely fenced off. The series shows that there are no other prisoners in this part of the camp, but piles of bricks and planks are piled up along the roads - suggesting that work is still going on at the site. It is difficult to imagine that the camp authorities would have directed the guards to guard a single prisoner occupying an entire barrack alone in an unsecured and yet-to-be-commissioned part of the camp.
Thus, contrary to what the series portrays, Lali may have found himself in the Zigeunerlager at the earliest after almost a year in Auschwitz and not shortly after his arrival (episode 1). It is also significant that the Roma were placed there first; only in the following days were prisoners sent there to work to sort out the records of the family camp. Thus, the appearance of Roma in the barracks long occupied by Lali is a misconception.
The series does not explain where the other tattooists are housed - do they each have an empty barracks with a separate room to themselves? Naturally, common sense dictates that such a notion should be rejected, considering the number of barracks that must have been allocated for them. So, where do the other inmates involved in tattooing live and sleep, including Leon, Lali's closest assistant and friend? And why was Lali singled out to receive private accommodation? The series viewer receives no answers to these questions.
The answer to the first of these can be found in the authentic accounts of former KL Auschwitz prisoners, including the statement of Tadeusz Joachimowski , who was sent to work in the Roma camp's office in the spring of 1943. This document verifies what was presented in the book and on screen.
It reads that non-Roma prisoners were sent to work in the office of the Zigeunerlager in April 1943. They were accommodated in block 2, which housed the camp offices (Schreibstube), the prisoners' employment office (Arbeitseinsatz) and the prisoners' canteen. In addition to the prisoners mentioned above, the rest of the block housed Roma prisoners working in the camp kitchen, among others. Thus, during the day, the block housed both male and female prisoners working in the chancellery offices and members of the SS staff, while at night, it housed prisoners (male) of various nationalities. Entire Roma families were not relocated there, and because of the office's location, Roma children did not have unrestricted access.
However, considering the camp documents, whether Ludovit Eisenberg was placed in sector BIIe remains questionable. This was because it was inhabited exclusively by Roma, in addition to a very small number of Jewish and Polish prisoners who were permanently employed in the Zigeunerlager (in the office, hospital, etc.). Three arguments support the claim that Eisenberg did not belong to this group. Firstly, his name does not appear in accounts of prisoners sent there to work. Secondly, it was also not recorded in the surviving documents of the BIIe camp. However, Eisenberg's name is present on the bonus lists of the Birkenau men's camp, indicating his confinement in that specific location.
Eisenberg was probably initially placed at Auschwitz I, then potentially in the men's camp located in sector BIb, and once the men's camp in sector BIId was established (which occurred in July 1943), it is likely that he was transferred there. Prisoners incarcerated in section BIId - directly adjacent to the Zigeunerlager - had the opportunity to observe the lives of the Roma imprisoned there and even interact with them through the fence. This would explain why so much attention is paid to the Roma in Lali's memoirs. Furthermore, Eisenberg, as a tattoo artist, would occasionally be assigned to a family camp to tattoo its inhabitants but was not permitted to stay there permanently. The hypotheses mentioned above suggest that Ludovit Eisenberg's fate is probably different from what is portrayed in the book and series. Although the gaps in the documentation don't provide absolute confirmation, they cast doubt on the credibility of the version that Lali resided in the Zigeunerlager.
The lack of authenticity not only distorts the reality of the camp but is also evident in the highly unrealistic depiction of identifying a corpse in the gas chamber (episode 1). Interestingly, this scene literally mirrors the contents of Morris's book. In the series, we see Baretzki lead Lali into an underground gas chamber where there are two naked bodies. Lali's task is to read the numbers so that the murdered person can be correctly identified for record-keeping purposes. In reality, it is highly improbable for a situation like this to have occurred. Firstly, the numbers of prisoners sentenced to death in the camp were documented and verified during the selection process. They were removed from the camp's official count as soon as they were sent to the gas chamber. The bodies remained unidentified even after the murder, as there was no necessity to do so.
Secondly, the area around the crematoria and gas chambers was fenced and strictly isolated and only Sonderkommando prisoners and selected (initiated) SS men on duty there had access. Neither Lali nor Baretzki would have been allowed there. It appears that this scene was added to the series purely for dramatic effect, so Baretzki could tell Lali that he may have been the only Jewish survivor of the gas chamber (which, by the way, is false - the Sonderkommando prisoners regularly entered and exited the gas chambers multiple times a day, removing the corpses of the victims - some Sonderkommando members survived and recounted their experiences after the war).
The shooting of prisoners in the courtyard of block 11 was portrayed in an inauthentic manner (episode 4). The courtyard itself bears no resemblance to the real one, which can still be visited today on the grounds of the Auschwitz Museum. It's too small, it's too narrow, the windows should only be obscured on the side of block 10, and the walls of the buildings look completely different from the authentic ones - anyone who has ever been to the site of today's museum or seen photos of the place is struck by the fact that this is not Auschwitz. The site looks like it was used in the series due to the lack of a better alternative. This is incredibly astonishing. This is primarily because the courtyard of Block 11 is one of the most recognisable symbols of KL Auschwitz, with an almost iconic status. Consequently, it can be surmised that such a portrayal was a conscious decision by the series creators rather than a result of ignorance or the unavailability of a model. Secondly, this shortcoming contrasts sharply with the care taken to recreate the appearance of the barracks and their spatial arrangement in Birkenau.
The execution that takes place in the courtyard of Block 11 also strays considerably from historical realities. First and foremost, men and women were executed separately, with the condemned required to be completely nude rather than wearing striped attire and positioned facing the wall rather than having their backs turned. Executions were carried out with a small-calibre firearm (not a military rifle) by administering a shot to the back of the head (not the forehead) from a distance closer than portrayed in the series.
Also, the reenactment of Lali's interrogation (episode 4) dramatically deviates from the historical truth. It takes place in an unspecified basement-like room with shabby walls - a stereotypical representation that deviates from the truth. The interiors of SS men's daily work environments could not have looked like this.
This description may align with the creators' conceptualisation of the basement in Block 11, the camp's detention facility where prisoners convicted of various offences were incarcerated. In reality, the interrogations did not take place in the basement of block 11 or other cellars. Instead, they occurred in the wooden barrack Politische Abteilung near the crematorium I building.