Imre Kertesz's Fatelessness

Fatelessness by Imre Kertesz is a novel depicting a fourteen year old boy Gyuri Koves and his experiences during the Holocaust. Despite Gyuri’s contentious relationship with his own Jewishness, he is still sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buchenwald and Zeitz, where he spends his time working as a slave essentially. Throughout the novel, the reader is shown a transformation that occurs to Gyuri, as the lad starts off as a relatively awkward and fairly naive boy to a survivalist, and last to something known in the camps as a muselmann, someone who resigned themselves to death from the environment with in the camps. The transformation while inside the work camp occurs in a general format where Gyuri learns survival skills, and then through the “mundanity”

and the mental toil of forced labor at the camp, combined with physical deterioration, creates a nihilistic, muselmann out of the boy.
When the reader is introduced to Gyuri, he is fourteen-fifteen years old who is fairly awkward, and naive. For starters, Gyuri is in the midst of his parents divorce, as well as his father leaving for a seperate work camp. It’s Gyuri’s relationship with his mother that becomes emotionally estranged, specifically in chapters one and two, where Gyuri’s mother tries to hug Gyuri, but he recoils and when she tries to get Gyuri to show her love more than just via words, but with actions, presumably via hugs and kisses. However, it’s Gyuri’s dedication to be loyal to his father that creates an awkward situation for his biological mother and him, whereas regardless of the court results, Gyuri could have shown her the love one would normally give a biological mother. This awkwardness becomes exasperated when Gyuri mentions how he does not like leaving his mother’s place, creating a strange, minor catch-22 scenario where he hates leaving his mother’s, but doesn’t give her the respect a biological mother is expected to receive. Later on, within chapters three and four, Gyuri is revealed to perhaps be relatively naive, specifically after Gyuri is arrested and taken to a temporary holding cell, before being moved to what he only later finds out is Auschwitz-Birkenau to work. Throughout this affair, it never occurs to Gyuri that something worse will happen to him, specifically when Gyuri is told he will have to present his documents to a “higher authority” and that the whole experience is just a “cursory formality.” He doesn’t really even question being held in a holding cell without being told of what he is in there for. This is one of the many numerous examples Gyuri shows where he is naive. However, it is, because of them that the reader gets the suspicion that Gyuri is perhaps naive, as well as fairly awkward before his major transformation to a muselmann.
The first stage Gyuri enters during his transformation is a stage of active survival and one where he picks up many tips about the day-to-days in the various camps Gyuri gets sent to. It’s in chapter five, page 105, for example, where upon first entering Auschwitz, naive Gyuri passes up eating a vegetable stew, because he considered it gross. However will go on to later look forward to it, since there isn’t any alternative. Perhaps Gyuri’s most important survival achievement was when he befriended a man named Bandi Citrom, who Gyuri met in Zeitz, the third camp Gyuri is transferred to, where he spends most of his time doing manual labor. In chapter six, Gyuri picks up on hidden strategies for survival from Bandi, which includes storing bread in pockets, waiting in the end of the food line for thicker broth, bathing everyday and making a weapon out of his spoon. These strategies are picked up from observing and mimicking Bandi and are vital for Gyuri’s transformation into what he later becomes, because it serves as an intermediary step between Gyuri’s naivete and later on his nihilistic, muselmann state. They also ensure that Gyuri lives long enough to sort of reach that certain point in nihilism where he basically awaits his death to some degree. The other most important thing Bandi teaches Gyuri about however, is about the other inmates in the prison, namely the Finns, and Muslims or Musulmanner, as they are referred to in the novel. Bandi warns Gyuri to stay away from the Muslims as he claims “you will lose any will to live just by looking at them.” (Page 138). Being as Gyuri is separated from his friends, this lesson to some degree both helps and harms Gyuri. It perhaps saves him from an early demise, as Gyuri learns from the individual groups survival schemes, however as a survival technique it ultimately hurts Gyuri. Certain groups will chastise Gyuri about his background, for example, the Fins won’t consider Gyuri a gentile, and also refuse to barter with Gyuri as a result of this. It’s ultimately these scrutinies that help lead Gyuri to become nihilistic, despite the good intentions of the survival technique.
The final period is one which survival techniques seem become disregarded, and one which started since Gyuri was brought into the camp, culminating in what would be the peak of his nihilism at the hospital in Buchenwald.

During Gyuri stay in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Gyuri discovers two things: one being what the smell in the air is, and two what happens to unfit men, women and children. It’s the catalyst for the mental game that begins within Gyuri, as the thoughts of all those who didn’t make it and were instead taken into showers and treated with relatively lenient conditions than that which the workers were exposed to begins to have an effect on him. Gyuri describes it as a joke, albeit not a funny one, and helps develop Gyuri nihilistic point of view on the world, specifically in Zeitz and the hospital. It’s in Zeitz where Gyuri is broken, especially given the camps terrible living conditions for the workers. Another key aspect of Gyuri’s transformation would be in Zeitz and how the camp would even stretch the meanings of friendship. Particularly, in chapter six where Gyuri former friends abandon him in many ways, for example “Leather-ware” denying Gyuri extra food, presumably because when asked if he has a spare cigarette, Gyuri says he doesn’t. Another example of this was Fancyman who seemingly succumbs to this zombie-esque nihilism where he just ignores Gyuri when he is called. Although not emphasized nearly enough, this minor detail is key to understanding how Gyuri himself will become empty, as these are example of a second wave of friends and family “leaving” Gyuri, leading to emptiness and later nihilism within Gyuri. The most influential event that changes Gyuri is more so the constant labor that becomes almost mundane in some ways, as it sucks the life out of Gyuri. The most important event that wears Gyuri down physically was towards the end of chapter six where Gyuri struggles to carry bags of cement, something he referred to as being “childs’ play” back

home, now struggling. This event ultimately leads to a beating for Gyuri, which forces him to keep working, almost like an electric shock. This event in isolation isn’t particularly significant, however if you add in context, for example, the amount of time he’s spent in the camp, as well as the fact that Gyuri was able to do this with easy as before he was in the camp, leads to a scenario where it becomes the beginning of the end for Gyuri mentally and physically. It’s the most significant moment perhaps in Gyuri transformation from a boy, to a survivalist to a nihilist. It creates two moments in the book where Gyuri resigns himself, namely Gyuri falling over in line, laying on the floor lifelessly, and in chapter seven where Gyuri is transferred to a medic and spends the rest of his time in medic tents in Zeitz and Buchenwald basically welcoming death.
In conclusion, Gyuri undergoes a transformation that is begins with him being naive and awkward, which then develops into Gyuri learning survival skills, and lastly Gyuri essentially giving up and accepting death. It’s through studying and observing others in the camp as well as Bandi Citrom where Gyuri learns to live, and it’s through studying and observing that Gyuri realizes that it’s looking bleak for him. Combine that with the hard, tedious, mundane labor Gyuri undergoes and the transformation is clear. Gyuri survives the camps physically, but mentally, he seems distant during freedom.