THE GHOST TATTOO
The profoundly moving story of a son's quest to uncover his father's Holocaust secret.
“This extraordinary narrative is a powerful instance of the trans-generational impact of the Holocaust but, above all, is a remarkable examination of the position of a ghetto policeman and the guilt he felt, if he survived, into later life.”
Thomas Keneally, author of “Schindler’s List”
NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY AWARD
SHORTLISTED 2023
Judges’ Comments
A remarkable story well told. Tony Bernard adds important granularity to one of history’s most wicked chapters. Bernard takes the reader through time and space to weave a narrative about sacrifice , guilt and the arrangements ordinary people will make just to survive.
Tony’s father, Henry, was a GP on the northern beaches of Sydney and Tony had a relatively normal childhood. But there was always a mystery surrounding Henry, and it was only later that the author discovers the words that inform his father’s many terrors: Nazis, Holocaust, Anti-semitism. ‘The Ghost Tattoo’ is a 40-year mission to piece together the life of the man Tony Bernard thought he knew. In doing so, he does return to his father something the Nazis tried to eradicate: his own history.
There is a deep humanity in these pages and they deserve to be read.
“The Ghost Tattoo is an exceptional biography…”
The Weekend Australian Review
ABOUT THE GHOST TATTOO
To the outside world, Henry Bernard was a hard-working and beloved family doctor on Sydney's Northern Beaches. Yet he was also a Holocaust survivor whose life was profoundly affected by the experiences of his past. He took extreme steps for his family's security, keeping a rifle near his bedroom and covering up his family's Jewish origin.
But Henry had a bigger secret and a deeper regret about what he had done during the war.
The Ghost Tattoo is the story of how Tony Bernard, Henry's eldest son, went on a forty-year journey with his father to solve the mystery of why Henry was the way he was, and how he finally came to understand the desperate choices Henry had made in the ghetto to try to keep himself and his family alive.
About Tony
Tony Bernard is an emergency doctor on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. His father Henry was his hero, and it was natural that he followed him into the medical profession. Yet it was one thing to idolise Henry and another to understand who he was and what he had gone through. Over decades, Tony found himself on a path of discovery, eventually writing his father's memoirs shortly before his death in 2016. What began as a journey to understand his father became the uncovering of an extraordinary holocaust survival story.
Behind the Scenes
During his travels and discussions with his father, Tony collected many photographs and documents that provide a fascinating insight into Henry and Halina’s lives and, by extension, the millions of others who experienced the horrors of the Holocaust.