Trauma tattoos
Oct. 7, the Holocaust and the 'canvas for painful memories'
It’s a phenomenon that has been widely studied: The grandchildren of Holocaust survivors will get tattoos that copy or mimic the numbers forcibly tattooed on their grandparents’ arms.
They’re called “trauma tattoos” or “memorial tattoos.” They turn the body, as author Verena Hutter wrote, into “a canvas for the painful memories of others.”
Researcher Alice Bloch of the University of Manchester (to whom I have reached out in the hopes of speaking more on the subject) studied Holocaust memorial tattoos from a sociological perspective and found that, “The decision to replicate the number was a statement about family relationships and was often a way of expressing love, legacy and continuity and pride.”
“Some descendants who replicated the number, which had dehumanized and stigmatized their ancestor, saw it as a way of reclaiming,” Bloch wrote.
It’s not a new thing and certainly not specifically Jewish. Polynesian cultures, among others, have long tattooed their bodies in remembrance of the dead. A tattoo intended as a way to remember and honor a loved one is not a rare sight at tattoo conventions in the United States.
So, it should not be surprising that Jews around the world have been getting tattoos as a way to remember those lost on Oct. 7, 2023.
One month after the Hamas attack, Israeli newspapers reported that tattoo parlors in Israel were booked solid. “Our entire appointments diary is full,” artist Omri Dubosc told Haaretz.
Academic Marloes Schoonheim told the Jewish Chronicle in December, 2023 that “The number of people having tattoos since Oct. 7 is huge.”
“When people have tattoos, they are often marking moments which are important to them, and Oct. 7 was so life-changing,” she said. “These tattoos express the hurt over what has happened and also the pride in being Israeli.”
Some tattoos simply said “Nova,” a reference to the festival that became the site of Israel’s largest-ever terror attack. Other tattoos were the date of the attack, Oct. 7, 2023, or names of people who were killed.
In New York, tattoo artist Yoni Zilber -- whose first language was Hebrew -- used to refuse to tattoo Hebrew letters.
“I just like people to come tell me what they want. I draw it for them and they go away,” he told me. “Jewish people from Long Island or whatever, they don't really want a tattoo. They want to show the connection to Israel or to Judaism. And when they come in that way, they don't have any idea about tattoos and then they really suck the living out of your energy.”
Though Zilber is Israeli by birth, he never felt Jewish. It had no significance for him, though that changed after Oct. 7. There was a clear shift in his mindset. He started giving away free tattoos in remembrance of the attack, or donated the proceeds, and in fact went home to Israel with a program called “Healing Ink.”
“After Oct. 7, I began to be way more proud of my Judaism,” he said. “Now I see what's happening in the world and I'm actually more proud to be Jewish, you know, and I'm more like, I want to be part of it.”
Bloch goes into depth about this idea while discussing Holocaust remembrance tattoos, that a memorial tattoo “signifies a relationship and heritage.”
“Personal lives are shaped by memories, as well as secrets and silences, and how they connect with history, relationships and identity,” she wrote.
Healing Ink, which brought Zilber and other tattoo artists to Israel after the attack, puts it nicely:
“Manifesting emotional trauma in physical pain, commemorating the day, creating an opportunity for peers to ask questions, beauty or wanting to cover a scar and erase a memory, all provide a sense of agency and independence. We cannot control what happened on that day. We can control how we respond.”