In the words of Ludwig Wittgenstein, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” From the myriad of languages spoken by prisoners to the harsh Nazi commands, communication is key in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Language was such an important part of the prisoners’ integrity that it was one of the only things the Nazis could never completely strip away. However, language also serves as a barrier between the prisoners; often unable to express themselves clearly to each other, prisoners had to learn to adapt their speech and learn other tongues to survive. This theme of language and communication largely shaped the world in Auschwitz, by allowing for development in relationships between people, societal power structures, and other nations, and continues to influence cultural identity today. …show more content…
1). Levi describes the German language as “outlandish” and “barbaric barking.” He clearly resents the German army, and thinks of them as merciless, animalistic creatures. Similarly, the German soldiers look down on the prisoners: “They (the German soldiers) hear us speak in many different languages, which they do not understand and which sound to them as grotesque as animal noises,” (121, ch. 12). This shows the relationship between the Jewish and German cultures, and how language differences had heavy influence on their perceptions of each
All of Levi's experiences while he was in Auschwitz describe the dire need for human society to thrive off of each other like parasites within communities. The metaphor of the Nazis being parasitic pests to society and the Jews being their hosts capture this statement rather well. His details that he leaves us in his memoir carry on the stories and experiences of not only himself, but of all of the inocent men, women, and children who lost their lives during this horrific time in history. Levi also imposes that his experiences, as well as the experiences of others, will instill in his audience's minds through his usage of discreat language and graphic context which helped in creating accurate dipictions of his trials towards readers.
Six million Jews died during World War II by the Nazi army under Hitler who wanted to exterminate all Jews. In Night, Elie Wiesel, the author, recalls his horrifying journey through Auschwitz in the concentration camp. This memoir is based off of Elie’s first-hand experience in the camp as a fifteen year old boy from Sighet survives and lives to tell his story. The theme of this memoir is man's inhumanity to man. The cruel events that occurred to Elie and others during the Holocaust turned families and others against each other as they struggled to survive Hitler's and the Nazi Army’s inhumane treatment.
The Holocaust is known to be one the World's greatest catastrophes. Many people know about it, but very few know how life was like in the concentration camps. In the memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel utilizes figurative language like metaphors, irony, foreshadowing, and unique sentence structures, to convey and compare how life during the Holocaust was ghastly, full of lies and regret, and how it was like "one long night, seven times cursed"(25).
When the author of Night, Elie Wiesel, arrives at Auschwitz, the Jewish people around him, the Germans, and himself have yet to lose their humanity. Throughout the Holocaust, which is an infamous genocide that imprisoned many Jewish people at concentration camps, it is clear that the horrors that took place here have internally affected all who were involved by slowly dehumanizing them. To be dehumanized means to lose the qualities of a human, and that is exactly what happened to both the Germans and the Jewish prisoners. Wiesel has lived on from this atrocious event to establish the dehumanization of all those involved through his use of animal imagery in his memoir Night to advance the theme that violence dehumanizes both the perpetrator and the victim.
Murders inflicted upon the Jewish population during the Holocaust are often considered the largest mass murders of innocent people, that some have yet to accept as true. The mentality of the Jewish prisoners as well as the officers during the early 1940’s transformed from an ordinary way of thinking to an abnormal twisted headache. In the books Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi and Ordinary men by Christopher R. Browning we will examine the alterations that the Jewish prisoners as well as the police officers behaviors and qualities changed.
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.
“Concentration camps (Konzentrationslager; abbreviated as KL or KZ) were an integral feature of the regime in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum).
As World War II occurred, the Jewish population suffered a tremendous loss and was treated with injustice and cruelty by the Nazi’s seen through examples in the book, Man’s Search for Meaning. Victor Frankl records his experiences and observations during his time as prisoner at Auschwitz during the war. Before imprisonment, he spent his leisure time as an Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist in Vienna, Austria and was able to implement his analytical thought processes to life in the concentration camp. As a psychological analyst, Frankl portrays through the everyday life of the imprisoned of how they discover their own sense of meaning in life and what they aspire to live for, while being mistreated, wrongly punished, and served with little to no food from day to day. He emphasizes three psychological phases that are characterized by shock, apathy, and the inability to retain to normal life after their release from camp. These themes recur throughout the entirety of the book, which the inmates experience when they are first imprisoned, as they adapt as prisoners, and when they are freed from imprisonment. He also emphasizes the need for hope, to provide for a purpose to keep fighting for their lives, even if they were stripped naked and treated lower than the human race. Moreover, the Capos and the SS guards, who were apart of the secret society of Hitler, tormented many of the unjustly convicted. Although many suffered through violent deaths from gas chambers, frostbites, starvation, etc., many more suffered internally from losing faith in oneself to keep on living.
In the years of 1940-1945, at least 1,100,000 Jewish people were sent to Auschwitz; Elie Wiesel was one of them. In the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, Wiesel details the horrors of Auschwitz, and his short stay at Buchenwald. Wiesel shares memories of trying to keep his father alive as well as himself, while slowly losing his faith in God. Throughout Night by Elie Wiesel, many conflicts are present such as man vs man, man vs self, and man vs nature, all of which I believe drastically bring out the horrors of Auschwitz.
The Holocaust is marked as one of the most horrifying events of the 20th century.The person who was responsible for the Holocaust was Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi Party. The question is, how, and why was Hitler able to do this? The actual truth behind all this is that, Hitler could make the world his, just by using words. In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, it tells a story about a young girl growing up when Nazi Germany was invincible. The author explores some very meaningful, yet, controversial themes for the most part of the novel. Out of all themes, he believes that words hold a remarkable power. He explores how words manipulate, divide, and connect people.
The brutality the Germans displayed in the 1930s through the 1940s was utterly horrifying. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the author’s harrowing experience is shared. The Holocaust is worldly known as being one of the largest genocides in history, but not many truly understand what it was like to live through and witness. A lot of people had their life taken away whether figuratively or literally and many discovered so much loss that they became unphased by it after a while. Many who encountered the cruelty and merciless of the Germans have passed but a few remain that live to tell their story to the world and try to explain the feelings that coursed through them during the genocide and even now. Wiesel, who lived in Auschwitz for
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
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.