“[. . .] even in this place one can survive, and therefore one must want to survive, to tell the story, to bear witness; and that to survive we must force ourselves to save at least the skeleton, the scaffolding, the form of civilization” (Levi 41). Primo Levi, the narrator of Survival in Auschwitz, was a twenty-five year old Jewish man from Turin, Italy who had been arrested and sent to Monowitz in 1943 later ending up at Auschwitz. While he was at Auschwitz Levi and his fellow prisoners experienced starvation, hard labor, diseases, and physical punishments. Despite all of the things Levi went through in the ten months spent at the camps, in January 1945 the Nazis deserted the camp only taking the healthy prisoners. Levi, as well as others, were left behind at the camp because of their diseases and sicknesses. Little did they know …show more content…
only ten days later they would be rescued by the Soviet army and taken back to Italy.
Through Levi’s journey at Auschwitz he learned that, “there comes to light the existence of two particularly well different categories of men – the save and the drowned” (Levi 87). The difference between the “drowned” and the “saved” will be shown by discussing the threats to survival in the camps such as poor hygiene, the factors and strategies that enabled Levi and a few fellow prisoners to survive Auschwitz for instance luck, and the ultimate meaning of survival to Levi which we came to find out is remembering who you are while in the Lager. The threats to survival in the camps that Levi, as well as his fellow prisoners, experienced were starvation and poor hygiene. Levi personally experienced many more threats but these are the most prominent. All of the threats to survival made Levi and his fellow prisoners feel like they had finally hit the bottom from the very second they entered the camps first at Monowitz. The prisoners, including Levi, experienced hunger from day one after they were
arrested. While on the journey and when they entered the camps the prisoners had never been given enough food and water to quench their hunger and thirst. Levi first showed this when he said, “ We have learnt the value of food; now we also diligently scrape the bottom of the bowl after the ration and we hold it under our chins when we eat break so as not to lose the crumbs” (Levi 33). The prisoners also questioned, “But how could one imagine not being hungry? The Lager is hunger: we ourselves are hunger, living hunger (Levi 74). While in the Lager Levi also was threatened by poor hygiene that was affecting his will to survive the camps by the insufficient clothing they were given, the poor sanitation, and the continuous spread of diseases throughout the camp. The poor sanitation can be shown by the waste bucket that Levi finds himself dumping many times during the middle of the night and he said that it never fails that “[. . .] some of the content overflows on our feet” (Levi 62). Levi also described an instance that shows the threat to survival by the insufficient clothing when he stated, “The thought of having to plunge into the freezing air [. . .] made me shudder with disgust” (Levi 161). Levi finds all of these cases threatening to the survival in camps but not until later does he personally experience the threat of disease. The effect all of this had on Levi is apparent when he stated, “I am not even alive enough to know how to kill myself” (Levi 144). The factors and strategies that enabled Levi and some of his fellow prisoners to survive Auschwitz were chance, ability, and gender. During the very early days after being arrested all of these factors played a huge role in whether someone was going to live or not. Right after exiting the wagon people were sorted into men, women, and children. The men would then be split into the young and old and whether they could handle hard labor or not. Only the young, healthy men and women had a chance at survival and that still was not guaranteed. Even though gender played a big role chance made an even bigger impact on the prisoners. When climbing down from the wagon “Those who by chance climbed down on one side of the convoy entered the camp; the other went to the gas chamber” (Levi 20). This was just one instance that Levi experienced during his time as a prisoner. All of these factors are the ones everyone thinks about as a literal sense of surviving. After going through all of the selections the factors that enabled Levi to survive the camps were the skills he obtained before entering the camp, the skills he learned while at Auschwitz, luck, and the friendships he made. Levi had been fortunate enough to have the companionship of his best friend Alberto and the accidental friendship with Lorenzo. Levi stated, “I believe that it was really due to Lorenzo that I am alive today [. . .] by his natural and plain manner of being good, that there still existed a just world outside our own, something and someone still pure and whole, not corrupt, not savage, extraneous to hatred and terror; something difficult to define, a remote possibility of good, but for which it is worth surviving” (Levi 121). Levi also showed his love to Lorenzo when he stated, “Thanks to Lorenzo, I managed not to forget that I myself was a man” (Levi 122). An example when Levi used the skills he acquired before coming to Auschwitz was him being talented in Chemistry. While at Auschwitz he earned himself a spot as a specialist which helped him to be “the object of envy of all the ten thousand condemned” (Levi 140). All of these factors helped Levi keep a sense of humanity and in the end enabled him to survive the Nazis. Levi quickly learned in the Lager that things are not the same as they are in the outside world because “in the Lager things are different: here the struggle to survive is without respite, because everyone is desperately and ferociously alone” (Levi 88). When Levi learns that there is a way to survive Auschwitz he figures out the way to survive is by remembering who you are while in the Lager. This comes from finding spirit and some temporary relief when the Nazis are trying to dehumanize all of the prisoners. While in the Lager Levi stated, “We preserved the memories of our previous life [. . .]” (Levi 116). Levi and his fellow prisoners all have dreams about their previous free life. One night while sleeping Levi has a dream that he recalls, “To be at home, in a wonderfully hot bath. To be at home, seated at a table. To be at home, and tell the story of this hopeless work of ours, of this never-ending hunger, of the slave’s way of sleeping” (Levi 70). He also recalls seeing his fellow prisoners “lick their lips and move their jaws” (Levi 61). He soon figures out that all of this prisoners, including himself, have dreams of eating. Even though Levi saw surviving as remembering who you are while in the Lager he also realized that remembering life before could be very dangerous. One can be engulfed in the life at the Lager and an example that Levi ran across was Elias. Elias was “[. . .] a product of the camp itself, what we will all become if we do not die in the camp, and if the camp itself does not end first” (Levi 97). Levi saw that many prisoners at Auschwitz had already not survived the camp because even if they made it out of the camp alive they have already forgotten who they really are. Levi shows the difference between the “drowned” and the “saved” by discussing the threats to the prisoners to survive in the camps, the factors and strategies that enabled Levi and his fellow prisoners to survive Auschwitz, and the ultimate meaning of what survival means to Levi. The most prominent threats to be able to survive the camps at Monowitz and Auschwitz are poor hygiene and starvation. The literal factors that enabled Levi and a few fellow prisoners to survive Auschwitz were chance, gender, and ability. There were also other factors such as the skills Levi obtained before entering the camp, the skills he learned while at camp, luck, and the companionships he made while at Auschwitz. While in the Lager Levi found the ultimate meaning of survival to be remembering who you really are.
In Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account, Dr. Miklos Nyiszli tells the story of his time in Auschwitz. Dr. Nyiszli is a Jewish survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp located in Poland. His story provides the world with a description of horrors that had taken place in camp in 1944. Separated from his wife and daughter, Dr. Nyiszli volunteered to work under the supervision of the head doctor in the concentration camp, Josef Mengele. It was under Dr. Mengele’s supervision that Dr. Nyiszli was exposed to the extermination of innocent people and other atrocities committed by the SS. Struggling for his own survival, Dr. Nyiszli did anything possible to survive, including serving as a doctor’s assistant to a war criminal so that he could tell the world what happened at the Auschwitz concentration camp.This hope for survival and some luck allowed Dr. Nyiszli to write about his horrific time at Auschwitz.His experiences in Auschwitz will remain apart of history because of the insight he is able to provide.
In Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account, to say that Auschwitz is an interesting read would be a gross understatement. Auschwitz is a historical document, a memoir but, most importantly an insider’s tale of the horrors that the captives of one of the most dreadful concentration camps in the history of mankind. Auschwitz, is about a Jewish doctors, Dr. Nyiszli, experience as an assistant for a Nazi, Dr. Mengele. Dr. Nyiszli arrived at Auschwitz concentration camp with his family unsure if he would survive the horrific camp. This memoir chronicles the Auschwitz experience, and the German retreat, ending a year later in Melk, Austria when the Germans surrendered their position there and Nyiszli obtained his freedom. The author describes in almost clinical detail and with alternating detachment and despair what transpired in the
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. In Levi's description of his journey to Auschwitz, home gradually becomes a symbol of the past. As a young Jewish chemist, participating in the anti fascist movement, Levi was arrested in Italy and eventually taken to the concentration camp, Auschwitz. As he is about to board the train to the camp, Levi claims “the happy memories of our homes, still so near in time and space [were] as painful as thrusting a sword” (Levi 10). At this point in Levis experience, home seems to be a place of safety and certainty from which he was taken and he now feels pain thinking of it because he is scared for what his future holds.
In Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents and Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz, both authors explore the source of human violence and aggression. Sigmund Freud’s book reacts to the state of Europe after World War I, while Primo Levi’s narrative is a first-hand account of his experiences during World War II. International and domestic tensions are high when both works are written; Sigmund Freud adopts a pessimistic tone throughout the work, while Primo Levi evolves from a despairing approach to a more optimistic view during his time at Auschwitz. To Sigmund Freud, savagery comes from the natural state of human beings, while Primo Levi infers violence is rooted in individual’s humanity being stripped away is.
Primo Levi’s tales of his labors in “Survival in Auschwitz” connected Marx’s ideas with work under extreme and unique circumstances. In the Lager, workers suffered extreme working conditions, were deskilled in labor, became one with the masses, and were dehumanized. Through Marx’s four estrangements (estrangement of man from the product of his labor, estrangement of man from the act of labor, estrangement of man from humanity, and the estrangement of man from man), it became evident the ways in which the Holocaust is a product of a heightened version of capitalist modernity.
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...
Primo Levi recollects his intense experiences after being sent to a German death camp (Auschwitz) in his book Survival in Auschwitz. The Nazis had been collecting Jews and others to lock inside concentration camps; there the Nazis used extreme tactics in keeping the prisoners under control in an inhuman state. For example, the prisoners would dig holes at random times during the day then have to fill them up later, they were stripped from there names and given a six-digit number for which they were referred to, and they were fed just enough to work, but not enough to resist the guards. Levi and many others were able to, in some degree; hold on to there humanity during this outrageous time.
During World War 2, thousands of Jews were deported to concentration camps. One of the most famous camps in Europe was Auschwitz concentration camp. From all of the people sent to this concentration camp only a small amount of people survived. These survivors all will be returning to Auschwitz to celebrate 70 years after liberation.
(It should be noted that when describing hardships of the concentration camps, understatements will inevitably be made. Levi puts it well when he says, ?We say ?hunger?, we say ?tiredness?, ?fear?, ?pain?, we say ?winter? and they are different things. They are free words, created and used by free men who lived in comfort and suffering in their homes. If the Lagers had lasted longer a new, harsh language would have been born; only this language could express what it means to toil the whole day?? (Levi, 123).)
...s advised early on that incurable illness lead to one’s downfall (Levi). When Levi contracts scarlet fever, he knows what is to come of him. Either he will die from the disease or will be put to death due to his inability to work (Levi). Luckily, the Soviet army pushes its forces closer and closer to the camp, leaving the chances of liberation possible (Levi). The Nazis lead an evacuation of the entire camp, except for those in the Ka-Be (Levi). Some believe that staying behind will only lead to their execution and decide to participate in the evacuation. Nonetheless, the Soviets arrived at Auschwitz several days later to liberate the camp (Levi).
Living in Europe during the 1930’s and 1940’s was very a difficult experience, especially if you were Jewish. In 1933, the Holocaust began when Adolf Hitler came to power in the country of Germany. An estimated 11 million people were killed during the holocaust, six million of those, innocent people, were Jewish. Allied Powers conquered Hitler and the Nazi power on May 8, 1945. Primo Levi was one of the men lucky enough to survive the holocaust. Levi was the author of his autobiography, Survival in Auschwitz. Survival in Auschwitz describes his ten-month journey as a young man surviving the horrible life while in the concentration camp, Auschwitz. Janusz Bardach’s powerfully written novel, Man is Wolf to Man: Surviving the Gulag, reflects on his extraordinary story and life changes while being a prisoner in Kolyma, of the soviet regime. While being a prisoner in these concentration camps, the men weren’t treated like normal human beings. For the two men and the rest of the prisoners, the only way they would survive is to adapt into a new and brutal lifestyle and behavior. The stories about their lives are really an eye opener about life and they remind us how we shouldn’t take for granted the beautiful life we have now.
In life, inevitably there are plenty of trials and tribulations that arise and present challenges for people, with some being out of one’s control. They vary in significance and by how much stress they induce, but they play a crucial role in the growth of a person. For example, living in a concentration camp during the Holocaust was a terrible and unfortunate experience for Jews and other minorities. Nevertheless, there were still many survivors that were able to endure the extreme conditions and then share their remarkable stories of struggle and perseverance, like survivors Primo Levi, an Italian Jew who lived in Auschwitz, and Samuel Willenburg, a Polish Jew who lived in Treblinka. Levi and Willenburg relied on certain characteristics in
If This Is a Man or Survival in Auschwitz), stops to exist; the meanings and applications of words such as “good,” “evil,” “just,” and “unjust” begin to merge and the differences between these opposites turn vague. Continued existence in Auschwitz demanded abolition of one’s self-respect and human dignity. Vulnerability to unending dehumanization certainly directs one to be dehumanized, thrusting one to resort to mental, physical, and social adaptation to be able to preserve one’s life and personality. It is in this adaptation that the line distinguishing right and wrong starts to deform. Primo Levi, a survivor, gives account of his incarceration in the Monowitz- Buna concentration camp.
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.