In 1993, after a twelve year break from recording, singer-songwriter Janis Ian release the album "Breaking the Silence." One of the songs on that album was called "Tattoo." By the end of the first stanza, it's apparent that the song is about a woman who was put into a concentration camp during World War II, and who endured having an ID number tattooed on her wrist.
Her new name was tattooed to her wrist,
It was longer than the old one.
Sealed in the silence with a fist,
This night will be a cold one.
Centuries live in her eyes,
Destiny laughs over jack-booted thighs.
"Work makes us free," says the sign.
Nothin' leaves here alive.
Tattoo.
She steps out of line to the left,
And her father to the right.
One side's a cold, clean death,
The other is an endless night.
Gold from a grandmother's tooth,
Mountains of jewelry and toys,
Piled in the corners, mailed across the borders,
Presents for the girls and boys.
Presents for the girls and boys.
Tattoo.
And it gets darker every night,
Spread-eagled out among the stars, she says,
"Somewhere in this tunnel lives a light.
Stilled by a beating heart,
I have never known a man.
What man will want me now?
Am I still alive, somehow?
If I can survive, somehow,
Tattooed."
Soldiers from the other side,
Liberated them at dawn.
Gave her water, gave her life,
She still had all her clothes on.
She lived until she died,
Empty as the autumn leaves that fly.
Surgeons took the mark,
But they could not take it far.
It was written on her heart,
Written on her empty heart.
Tattooed.
