in a place like that when your 
life is threatened every second 
of every day, and you’ve been 
dehumanized?
That is the stuff of great 
drama, really, to find charac-
ters in incomprehensible posi-
tions, but who display a uni-
versal truth about who we are 
as human beings. So, we went 
after the book, and we knew 
very early on that we want-
ed to adopt it as a television 
series. Lale’s story is just too 
big for a film; it wouldn’t have 
been possible to put it into 90 
minutes. It just seemed like 
such a great way for us to tell 
Lale’s story through his point 
of view, and with Lale played 
by Harvey Keitel, that was a 
complete honor and privilege.

JN: What was the creative 
process like to bring the 
story to life?
Mundell: We went on the 
long journey of developing 
the first script and then tak-
ing that out to broadcasters to 
get to the stage six years later 
when we were able to release 
it, but it’s probably been the 
most rewarding project of my 
entire career. I think one key 
hallmark of the show is our 
approach to the storytelling of 
Lale’s memory and his trau-
ma. As the audience, we see 
what he sees. The memories 
are slightly different, slighter 

darker, more truthful and per-
haps even more shameful for 
Lale [as they play out].
What we’re trying to do 
with that style is dramatize 
for an audience the nature 
of trauma and what trauma 
does to memory. We want the 
audience to experience that 
sense of being with this elder-
ly survivor who, even 60 years 
later, is still traumatized by 
what happened to him. 
 He’s ashamed of a lot of 
these memories, and he 
can’t fully share them [with 
Heather] until they get to a 
certain point in their rela-
tionship. Although he was a 
prisoner, he was a tattooist 
and effectively employed by 

the Nazis. His guilt is very 
complex because he’s not just 
guilty for surviving; he’s guilty 
about the way he survived.
Creating the show in terms 
of production was epic. We 
shot it in Slovakia, and that’s 
actually the country where 
Lale and Gita were from. 
Every day on set we had hun-
dreds of people, 150 crew and 
another 200 extras. We had to 
construct a set that comprised 
the elements of Auschwitz-
Birkenau, and we also had 
lorries [trucks] that would 
drive around the camp with 
green screens, and we used 
them to develop the visual 
effects and extend the camp 
in that way. Ultimately, there 

was a level of respect within 
the team and crew that the 
story we were telling was the 
thing that took greatest pre-
cedence.
We had counselors on 
board for our casting crew 
and tried to create a caring 
environment where people 
could do their best work 
while always being respectful. 
 
 
 
 
 
 One of the first things we 
did back in 2018 was we went 
to the Auschwitz-Birkenau 
memorial museum in Poland. 
We spoke to them and took 
every new head of department 
to Auschwitz to experience 
the place and to have a sense 
of the world that we were 
going to attempt to create. I 
say attempt because you can 
never recreate that place. You 
can only give the audience a 
sense of what that experience 
may have been like.
We also had a historical and 
cultural consultant on board 
who, from the very beginning, 
researched every aspect of 
the script for us and con-
sulted with the USC Shoah 
Foundation, the museums 
themselves and various other 
experts. We read and watched 
many testimonies from sur-
vivors and photographs, 

continued on page 51

MAY 9 • 2024 | 49

Scene from 
The Tattooist of 
Auschwitz

Scene from 
the Tattooist of 
Auschwitz

NBCU

NBCU

