The Holocaust was one of the most atrocious genocides we have seen in human history, an atrocity where the Jewish people were persecuted through intense torture, murder, and unspeakable injustices. Through the holocaust, many writers were able to express their experience as survivors so that people would never forget this tragic event. Personally, there are three stories that helped me transport myself into the moment and understand the pain, suffering, and fears of the survivor. The three different authors mentioned in this paper will demonstrate vivid imagery, metaphors, and allusions that express their own personal experiences.
Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi was written through his own point of view since he was a prisoner in Auschwitz
What is interesting is that he is very realistic with the reader in this story because not once he didn’t once hold back to decide which story or what experience he was going to share with the reader he specifically made his stories graphic so that the reader was able to feel the pain that he felt in Auschwitz and we can see that in the following quote “ The thought of the return journey struck in my heart.” In this quote, we specifically see how he knew that he might not be able to return home as he is making his way on to this new journey in his life where he is expected to do rigorous work and change his lifestyle. Levi depicts very vivid images of what it was like to live in Auschwitz through his use of allusions, metaphors the reader is able to get a glimpse of what his life was
The way that Auerbach writes this story is very interesting because she draws a comparison of the Holocaust to a natural disaster she starts off describing the tragedy that occurs in nature, a flood in the mountains that carries away the wooden huts along with the men, women and children she the quotes specifically “At a distance, one could see mouths gasping, but one could not hear the roar of the waters drowned out everything.” In here we see the comparison of the children, men, and women who were gasping for help but no one stood by their side, she describes the endless pain and loss of hope that the Jewish people faced during that time. Auerbach tone depicts a lot of pain because she describes an endless powerless and sadness because she knows that the family members of the people who perished won 't be able to say Yizkor for their love ones. Therefore, she takes it upon herself to take these mitzvot and say Yizkor for these people, but this is easier said than done because we see that she is overwhelmed by this task and wants to simply give up and stop writing she herself knows that it is not a possibility because she does not want to forget anyone as well as she knows that the people who perish are
“What do you expect? That’s war…” Elie Wiesel, young teenage boy sent to work in a concentration camp with his family near the end of WW2. Author of his own autobiography, Night recounting his struggles during that time. This book is about a boy named Elie Wiesel who was captured by the Nazi’s and was put into a concentration camp, and got disconnected from God, and was very close to his mom, dad, and family. Throughout Night Elie Wiesel addresses the topic of genocide through the use of imagery, simile, and personification.
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.
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).
...urvivors crawling towards me, clawing at my soul. The guilt of the world had been literally placed on my shoulders as I closed the book and reflected on the morbid events I had just read. As the sun set that night, I found no joy in its vastness and splendor, for I was still blinded by the sins of those before me. The sound of my tears crashing to the icy floor sang me to sleep. Just kidding. But seriously, here’s the rest. Upon reading of the narrators’ brief excerpt of his experience, I was overcome with empathy for both the victims and persecutors. The everlasting effect of the holocaust is not only among those who lost families÷, friends,
Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault onHumanity. Trans. Stuart Woolf. New York: Collier-Macmillan, 1987.
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 stories. Unlike other Holocaust stories, Wiesel gave not only the facts but also the horrific and realistic feelings of a victim in the camps. All of Elie Wiesel’s novels were based on his life.
...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).
To sum up, World War II is the most destructive human endeavor in history. Battles are fought on every continent and involved more than sixty countries, affecting about three-quarters of the world’s population. Six million Jews are murdered by the Nazis from all of the civilians in Europe for extermination. The memory of Holocaust has made the world more sensitive to genocide. The Holocaust has a particular impact on the Jewish people, who vowed never to allow such a thing happen again. The Night and Fugitive Pieces are two impressive books which show readers a fact of Holocaust and tell the world even the situation is worst, love from families and friends, faith and intension of alive may ensure them alive.
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.
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
“Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often easily loses himself.” This short quote is taken from Primo Levi’s “Survival in Auschwitz”. It depicts a true story of Primo Levi during the Holocaust, who was relocated to an extermination camp after beginning a great life after college. Primo was captured with a resistant group from Italy. He used his college education and degree in chemistry to stay alive.
Levi writes about memoirs of the people and the incidents that happened in the Lager. Thousands of individuals were known as the “muselmann” which meant those who were old and doomed to selection, despite the fact that there were those who influenced Levi to reach salvation. In Auschwitz, if you were old, sick or could not work, you were sent to the crematory. If you were lucky, you were sent to the Ka-Be for a doctor to examine you improperly to say the least. Levi spoke about a man named Elias Lindzin, who he described as the Hercules in the Chemical Kommando. Levi was fascinated that Elias, a 5-foot tall dwarf was able to escape death and survive like him momentarily. Elias, a tailor and carpenter was strong and was able to carry more sacks of cement than anyone in his group. Levi never saw him rest, quiet or ill, he imagined Elias a free man, but despite his fame as being exceptional in the Lager, no one could comprehend why this man’s life was ended by
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
Primo Levi: Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996) [first published as If This Is a Man], p. 86.
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.