Adolf Hitler was a callous dictator who controlled Germany in the 1930s and drove it to turn on its own citizens, creating a period we now call the Holocaust. Concentration camps were designed to incapacitate those deemed responsible for the country’s biggest problems. The most infamous of all the concentration camps was Auschwitz, in southern Poland. It was the largest of the camps, holding three separate camps inside of it; all using prisoners for forced labor and killing nearly 1 million of those prisoners. There were many famous writers that emerged out of the Holocaust, but arguably one of the most harrowing tales was that of Primo Levi, a Jewish Italian writer who was arrested during World War II and imprisoned in Auschwitz until its …show more content…
liberation. To survive something as dark and atrocious as the Holocaust speaks volumes to Levi’s resilience as an individual. The most essential qualities Levi possessed that guided him through the Holocaust were his intelligence, his natural intuition, and his compassion for others; they all led him to his survival during his stay in Auschwitz. Levi was lucky enough to have entered Auschwitz with an education.
And smart enough to realize he must use it in order to possibly save his life and improve his circumstances. His treatment in Auschwitz is the same as every other prisoner’s — inhumane. Levi realized pretty early that he would need to improve his conditions physically in order not to succumb to malnutrition, disease, etc. The best way to do that was to be of value to his captors. His education provided that avenue. They needed chemists in the laboratory, so Levi took the chemistry test to determine whether he could work there or not. As winter was approaching, the Kapo of the Chemical Kommando announced that three men had been chosen to work in the laboratory and Levi was one of them. He instantly received better treatment “as a specialized worker, [he] had the right to a new shirt and underpants and must be shaved every Wednesday,” which was something none of the other prisoners had access to (139). Being one of the skilled laborers “...[meant] a strong probability of not falling seriously ill, of not being frozen, of overcoming the selections,” which was a godsend for Levi (140). But despite this blessing, Levi knows that it was “...the gift of fortune, to be enjoyed as intensely as possible and at once; for there is no certainty about tomorrow,” (140). Staying grounded despite a glimmer of hope kept Levi in a good place in order to survive this hell on
earth. Not only does his intelligence create a physical ability to withstand the grueling day to day Levi in Auschwitz, but also his strong intuition guides him in reading people and in making smart decisions quickly. Because of this intuition, he can determine whether someone told him the truth or not, thus being able to know who he can trust. Upon their arrival in Auschwitz, Levi and a group of men were immediately forced into a large shower room where they were kept waiting for quite a while until a Hungarian dentist came into the room and told the prisoners of life in the camp. He insisted that “...every Sunday there [were] concerts and football matches” and those who worked well could receive “prize coupons with which to buy tobacco and soap” (25). Yet Levi knew better than to trust him, and described him as an “...incomprehensible person [who] wanted to amuse himself at [their] expense, and [did] not want to believe him,” (26). Psychologically, Levi has to prepare himself that the reality will be far from what this man was
In Primo Levi’s Survival In Auschwitz, an autobiographical account of the author’s holocaust experience, the concept of home takes on various forms and meanings. Levi writes about his experience as an Italian Jew in the holocaust. We learn about his journey to Auschwitz, his captivity and ultimate return home. This paper explores the idea of home throughout the work. As a concept, it symbolizes the past, future and a part of Levi’s identity. I also respond to the concept of home in Survival In Auschwitz by comparing it to my own idea and what home means to me – a place of stability and reflection that remains a constant in my changing life.
Thousands of people were sent to concentration camps during World War Two, including Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel. Many who were sent to the concentration camps did not survive but those who did tried to either forgot the horrific events that took place or went on to tell their personal experiences to the rest of the world. Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi wrote memoirs on their time spent in the camps of Auschwitz; these memoirs are called ‘Night’ and ‘Survival in Auschwitz’. These memoirs contain similarities of what it was like for a Jew to be in a concentration camp but also portray differences in how each endured the daily atrocities of that around them. Similarities between Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi’s memoirs can be seen in the proceedings that
When compelled to consider the conditions in which Levi was forced to live, it is clear to see that the will to survive must be complemented by another factor, as this will alone is not at all strong enough to sustain life. Not only are the authority figures brutish and sadistic, but the code among the prisoners themselves is even more cutthroat. In addition, the “cuisine” is terrible and is summed up in the following passage: “...every two or three hours we have to get up to discharge ourselves of the great dose of water which during the day we are forced to absorb in the form of soup in order to satisfy our hunger…” (Levi 61). Furthermore, the camp is arranged in a hierarchical system with each group of prisoners having corresponding...
It is well known that the Holocaust concentration camps were a gruesome place to be. People are aware of the millions of deaths that have occurred in these concentration camps. The Plaszow concentration camp was a dreadful place for Jews everywhere in Europe at the time. Beginning with the history of Plaszow, to the man who enjoyed torturing Jews and then the man who salvaged thousands of lives, Plaszow concentration is remembered vividly in many Jewish people’s minds.
Before being deported, Joseph worked as a trained tailor. Joseph Mandrowitz was deported to Majdanek, a torture camp, and ended up working for the Schutzstaffel, also known as SS officers. He was later deported to Auschwitz. At Auschwitz, Joseph was showered, shaved, disinfected, and tattooed the number 128164. One day Joseph helped himself to tomatoes, and was beaten so bad he was sent to a hospital. At the hospital, he was given a 4-5 day recovery limit. If he did not heal by that time, he would be sent to Birkenau to be gassed. Joseph did not recover on time. He was sent to Birkenau where he met Dr. Mengele. Dr. Mengele must have seen the working potential in him that he sent him back to the hospital to recover completely. In Treblinka, Joseph’s entire family was killed. After the war, he moved to the U.S. Joseph will be revisiting Auschwitz for the last
In looking back upon his experience in Auschwitz, Primo Levi wrote in 1988: ?It is naïve, absurd, and historically false to believe that an infernal system such as National Socialism (Nazism) sanctifies its victims. On the contrary, it degrades them, it makes them resemble itself.? (Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, 40). The victims of National Socialism in Levi?s book are clearly the Jewish Haftlings. Survival in Auschwitz, a book written by Levi after he was liberated from the camp, clearly makes a case that the majority of the Jews in the lager were stripped of their human dignity. The Jewish prisoners not only went through a physical hell, but they were psychologically driven under as well. Levi writes, ??the Lager was a great machine to reduce us to beasts? We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death?? (Levi, 41). One would be hard pressed to find passages in Survival in Auschwitz that portray victims of the camp as being martyrs. The treatment of the Jews in the book explicitly spells out the dehumanization to which they were subjected. It is important to look at how the Jews were degraded in the camp, and then examine whether or not they came to embody National Socialism after this.
Epstein shows the process that the majority of Jews were being put through, such as the medical examinations, medical experimentations, gas chambers and crematoriums. Medical examinations were used to determine if the Jews were healthy enough to work. Dr. Mengele used the Jews as “lab rats” and performed many experiments such as a myriad of drug testing and different surgeries. The gas chamber was a room where Jews were poisoned to death with a preparation of prussic acid, called Cyclo...
He liked to do experiments on twins because he could easily see what changes it does to the one that he would test it compares to the healthy one. Such things like this add up to making Auschwitz how bad it was.
Primo Levi, in his novel Survival in Auschwitz (2008), illustrates the atrocities inflicted upon the prisoners of the concentration camp by the Schutzstaffel, through dehumanization. Levi describes “the denial of humanness” constantly forced upon the prisoners through similes, metaphors, and imagery of animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization (“Dehumanization”). He makes his readers aware of the cruel reality in the concentration camp in order to help them examine the psychological effects dehumanization has not only on those dehumanized, but also on those who dehumanize. He establishes an earnest and reflective tone with his audience yearning to grasp the reality of genocide.
In Survival in Auschwitz, Primo Levi describes his time in the concentration camp. The depiction of Auschwitz, is gruesome and vile in the Nazi’s treatment of the captives being held, but especially in the treatment of its Jewish prisoners. A key proponent to the text is Levi’s will to live which is shown in various places in the text, however a thematic element to the will to live is the reference to Inferno by Dante. In particular, the Inferno aids Survival in Auschwitz in by adding another layer of context to the prisoner’s condition, which resembles hell, and Levi’s will to live paralleling the character, Dante.
It has been estimated that nearly half of the total number of concentration camp deaths between 1933 and 1945 occurred during the last year of the war” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). The Holocaust was one of the most tragic events in the world’s history. “The Holocaust is the most investigated crime in history, as has often been pointed out in response to deniers. Eichmann may be that crime’s most investigated criminal” (Sells, Michael A.). Adolf Eichmann was one of the Nazis.
Primo Levi’s narrative of the Holocaust explains the true struggle and chance for survival for the Jews in camps, specifically Auschwitz. Separately, Levi describes the true chance people had for survival in that they could have been selected to or in some cases boarded alone either the train car going to work or the train car going straight to the gas chambers. This is similar to the bombing of Hiroshima where some people could have been in the city, such as Saeki visiting her mother in which she could have died, or Kuribayashi being lucky enough in the distance away from the city. As Levi worked in the concentration camp of Auschwitz, he describes the struggle and dehumanization Jews had to go through to survive including tattooed numbers on their arms which labelled them, prisoners stealing soup or shoes to keep going. The major difference between the Hiroshima bombing and the Holocaust was the torture before an end versus an end before a torture. The Holocaust was either a two-minute torture in a gas
“While imprisoned, Hitler wrote, “My Struggle,” where he foretold the war that would lead to the death of many Jews.” (The Holocaust) The Jews were used as scapegoats by the Germans. They were treated terribly and lived in very poor conditions. Many of the Jewish children were put into homes, therefore having better chances of hiding.
Setting out with his arrest by the fascist militia in December of 1943, the text conforms to Primo Levi’s experience in the succeeding twelve months as an inmate in the National Socialists’ Monowitz- Buna concentration camp, seven kilometers east of Auschwitz. Upon arriving in the camp, the first-person narrator, Primo Levi, who holds a doctorate in chemistry, embarks on a world that renders him astonished; simply by making literary notes to Dante’s Inferno can he manage to draw its contours. After the degrading intake procedures, he actualizes that the objective of the place to which they have been brought is the psychological and physical devastation of the inmates. Inmate Levi, “Number 174517,” discovers more about the camp and the inhumane circumstances there....
Primo Levi was an Italian Jewish Anti-fascist who was arrested in 1943, during the Second World War. The memoir, “If this is a Man”, written immediately after Levi’s release from the Auschwitz concentration camp, not only provides the readers with Levi’s personal testimony of his experience in Auschwitz, but also invites the readers to consider the implications of life in the concentration camp for our understanding of human identity. In Levi’s own words, the memoir was written to provide “documentation for a quiet study of certain aspects of the human mind”. The lack of emotive words and the use of distant tone in Levi’s first person narration enable the readers to visualize the cold, harsh reality in Auschwitz without taking away the historical credibility. Levi’s use of poetic and literary devices such as listing, repetition, and symbolism in the removal of one’s personal identification; the use of rhetorical questions and the inclusion of foreign languages in the denial of basic human rights; the use of bestial metaphors and choice of vocabulary which directly compares the prisoner of Auschwitz to animals; and the use of extended metaphor and symbolism in the character Null Achtzehn all reveal the concept of dehumanization that was acted upon Jews and other minorities.