The Tattooist of Auschwitz author Heather Morris insisted on the importance of fiction in educating the world about the Holocaust at a JC event in London on Wednesday.
Speaking to TV personality and JC columnist Rob Rinder, the New Zealand-born novelist said that storytelling had a critical role to play in the fight against antisemitism.
Morris, who is not Jewish, said: “People aren’t going to relate to the number six million. A Jewish man in NYC pondered on what six million could look like... so he started collecting paperclips...
“Six million paperclips... meant nothing, but one paperclip did.”
Morris’s new novel about the Holocaust, The Piano Teacher of Montparnasse – published October 20 – tells the true story of one of those “paperclips”; Josie, an 11-year-old girl who lived the Parisian neighbourhood in Nazi occupied France.
Offering guests a sneak peak into the book, Morris said that when the Germans came to take away Josie, her mother and her brother in 1942, her mother said: “Run.”
Josie did, and was taken in by her non-Jewish piano teacher, Andrée Levallois, who Morris described as a “true hero”.
"The piano became her saviour,” Morris said. “She was allowed to play it at any time and she did every day. She used that piano to drown out the noises - the noises outside, but more importantly, the noises in her head, ‘where is my mama, where is my brother? When are they coming home?’”.
It was through Josie’s music that her new guardians could have a glimpse into how she was feeling, and the story explores their journey – with danger at every turn but hope on the horizon.
Morris also spoke to the 135-strong audience about how she discovered Josie’s story.
The Tattooist of Auschwitz, which sold millions of copies worldwide, found new life as a mini-series on Sky in 2024, with music by film score maestro Hans Zimmer.
On the set of the mini-series Zimmer asked Morris if his pianist, who was recording the melodies for the show, had told her about her grandmother’s story.
The pianist, whose name was Cara, was the granddaughter of Josie, and she said she was using her grandmother’s childhood piano to record the music for the mini-series. And so, a new story for Morris was born.
Morris visits schools to talk about the Shoah and her books. She said: “We need to start getting a few more people like me and Holocaust survivors’ family members into schools.”
Combatting antisemitism, she said, was about education. “It has to be about reminding the youth of what happened.”
The Tattooist of Auschwitz, one of the bestselling books so far this century, is on the syllabus of some schools.
Morris will hope The Piano Teacher of Montparnasse has the same impact on her mission to educate through fiction.
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