The Jewish Holocaust that took place in Germany before World War II, could not be compared to anything the world had ever seen before. Germans, who followed the radical Nazi regime, believed people of Jewish descent were biologically inferior. While in power of Germany, Adolf Hilter took Jews from their homes and imprisoned in concentration camps. While at these camps, Jews faced unfounded brutality and hatred. Most people who went to the camps did not make it out alive; dying from disease, starvation, or execution. However, there were survivors. Tadeusz Borowski, a Ukrainian citizen of Polish descent, is one example of a survivor. In his fictional narrative titled, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, Borowski writes of his time in …show more content…
This meant there were only the good guys and the bad guys, no middle zone. In his essay, Primo Levi writes about a need for society to clarify the world around them and a demand for a winner and a loser. Society tends to isolate those around them into two categories; those who are with them and those who are against them. Levi argues that this typical paradigm is flipped in concentration camps. The new, harsh atmosphere and cruelty caused initial shock that would not wavier throughout their time in the camps. Borowski experiences this during his time at the camps. He uses his past memories to try and cope with everything that he is experiencing, even though he really had never seen anything like it before. There were no good or evil people in the camps, everyone was fighting to stay alive. Because survival was the most important thing, the prisoners were often just as violent and angry as the German officers. This caused the line between good and evil to disappear. The prisoners fought and killed each other for food and anything to help them survive. Social class, wealth, and inheritance had little meaning to the prisoners in the compounds. They were all afraid and did not know if they would live to see the next day. Levi writes in his essay, "they were saved by luck, and there is not much sense in trying to find something common to all their destinies, beyond perhaps their initial good health" (Levi 50). This shows that there were no grand illusions to surviving the genocide, some were simply luckier than others. If they were physically fit, they would be put to work for the German army. However, if they were weak, the Germans would not hesitate to get rid of the person wasting food and space. Revolts were extremely uncommon at the camps. The mental and physical tolls the prisoners had gone through made any idea of revolt
There are unexpected aspects of life in the camp depicted in “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlement” by Tadeusz Borowski. The prisoners were able to make very obvious improvements to their lived in the camp, without reaction by the SS officers; the market was even made with the support of the camp. The prisoners actually hoped for a transport of prisoners, so as to gain some supplies. The true nature of the camp is never forgotten, even in better moments at the camp.
The Holocaust will forever be known as one of the largest genocides ever recorded in history. 11 million perished, and 6 million of the departed were Jewish. The concentration camps where the prisoners were held were considered to be the closest one could get to a living hell. There is no surprise that the men, women, and children there were afraid. One was considered blessed to have a family member alongside oneself. Elie Wiesel was considered to be one of those men, for he had his father working side by side with him. In the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, a young boy and his father were condemned to a concentration camp located in Poland. In the concentration camps, having family members along can be a great blessing, but also a burden. Elie Wiesel shows that the relationship with his father was the strength that kept the young boy alive, but was also the major weakness.
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.
Elie Wiesel: A Survivor of the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel wrote in a mystical and existentialistic manner to depict his life as a victim of the holocaust in his many novels. Such selections as ‘Night’ and ‘The Trial of God’ reveal the horrors of the concentration camps and Wiesel's true thoughts of the years of hell that he encountered. This hell that Wiesel wrote about was released later in his life due to his shock, sadness, and disbelief. Elie Wiesel spoke in third person when writing his story.
(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).)
According to Merriam-Webster, a holocaust is a destruction involving widespread death, specifically by fire. In 1943, World War II was at its’ peak. At that time, Jewish people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, and homosexuals were all herded like cattle into concentration camps by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi army. Hitler’s goal was to form what he believed to be a “superior” race known as Aryan. Hitler believed that the Aryan race (blond hair and blue eyes) was “superior” to these groups of people. According to Hitler, “When human hearts break and human souls despair, then from the twilight of the past, the great conquerors of distress and care, of shame and misery, of spiritual slavery and physical compulsion, look down and hold out their eternal hands to the despairing mortals. Woe to the people ashamed to grasp them!” Here, Hitler illustrates how the Aryans are “conquerors” above the “despairing mortals”. The Nazi party was led by Adolf Hitler, a manipulative and cruel dictator. Although John Boyne describes the appearance of the prisoners in Auschwitz, he leaves out significant details when describing Berlin’s setting in 1943, what the Auschwitz Concentration Camp was like, and how the people in the camps were treated.
One of the many themes that has arose is the theme of injustice. The theme of injustice stood out just by reading the back of the book. As stated before, this book takes place in the time of Hitler’s reign in Nazi Germany. If anyone had previous knowledge as to what Adolf Hitler’s “final solution” entitled, social injustice would evidently be pointed out. These prejudices could be something such as concentration camps, torture, discrimination of the Jewish race and the destruction of homes and shops. Although many Germans had no idea what was happening in Germany during Hitler’s reign, one would be quick to judge Germans as a whole. This is the perspective that is dominant in the novel, they never mention massacre or concentration camps, and they just lived their normal lives. After the author educates the reader about a Jewish man named Max Vandenburg, the narrator says: “You could argue that Liesel Meminger had it easy. She did have it easy compared to Max Vandenburg. Certainly, her brother practically died in her arms. Her mother abandoned her. But anything was better than being a Jew” (Zusak 161). This quote by itself shows how terribly the Jewish people were treated. In their daily lives, they are faced with destruction, social injustice, and discrimination. They are treated very disrespectfully; they live with racial slurs, house raids, as well as having the Star of David painted on
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
As early as age thirteen, we start learning about the Holocaust in classrooms and in textbooks. We learn that in the 1940s, the German Nazi party (led by Adolph Hitler) intentionally performed a mass genocide in order to try to breed a perfect population of human beings. Jews were the first peoples to be put into ghettos and eventually sent by train to concentration camps like Auschwitz and Buchenwald. At these places, each person was separated from their families and given a number. In essence, these people were no longer people at all; they were machines. An estimation of six million deaths resulting from the Holocaust has been recorded and is mourned by descendants of these people every day. There are, however, some individuals who claim that this horrific event never took place.
All things considered, as horrible as it sounds, it’s no surprise the people in the concentration camps were so selfish. They had to choose between their own lives or someone else’s life. While in the cattle cars,
First of all, to get a proper understanding of the events in my book, I did some research to paint a picture of the holocaust. The reason that the Germans started the holocaust a long time ago was because they believed that the Jewish people were minions of the devil, and that they were bent on destroying the Christian mind. Many Christians in Germany were also mad at them for killing Jesus in the Bible. Throughout the holocaust, Hitler, the leader of Germany at the time, and the Nazis killed about six million Jewish people, more than two-thirds of all of the Jewish people in Europe at the time. They also killed people who were racially inferior, such as people of Jehovah's Witness religion, and even some Germans that had physical and mental handicaps. The concentration camp that appears in this story is Auschwitz, which was three camps in one: a prison camp, and extermination camp, and a slave labor camp. When someone was sent to Auschw...
“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.
The holocaust was a tragical point in history. About six million Jews were slaughtered for no reason at all. Many innocent women, men, and children were killed by the dozens everyday. They were taken from their homes and sent to concentration camps and ghettos. In the concentration camps they were either put to work or killed. Survival was not in everybody’s hands. They had to rise above and do everything they can to survive. There were many who survived, who still stand today telling their stories. Elie Wiesel’s book Night, was a first hand account of the holocaust. In his book he talks about he experience during the holocaust. There were many methods of survival for the victims during the holocaust. Wiesel and other survivors who were interviewed
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.
In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, it talks about the holocaust and what it was like being in it. The Germans were trying to make the German race the supreme race. To do this they were going to kill off everyone that wasn’t a German. If you were Jewish or something other than German, you would have been sent to a concentration camp and segregated by men and women. If you weren’t strong enough you were sent to the crematory to be cremated. If you were strong enough you were sent to work at a labor camp. With all the warnings the Jewish people had numerous chances to run from the Germans, but most ignored the warnings.