Chapter 3

“For many weeks I considered these warnings about hygiene as pure examples of the Teutonic sense of humour, in the style of the dialogue about the truss which we had heard on our entry into the Lagar. But later I understood that their unknown authors, perhaps without realizing it, were not far from some very important truths. In this place it is practically pointless to wash everyday in the turbid water of the filthy washbasins for purposes of cleanliness and health; but it is most important as a symptom of remaining vitality, and necessary as an instrument of moral survival.(40)”

In a sense, it is absurd to have such measures of cleanliness in a concentration camp. It makes sense that Levi would question the reason for that. But he also reaches a conclusion on the existence of such rules. Without such rules, it would not be possible for people to be people in the concentration camps. In every person, there is some sense of human natural characteristics. Cleanliness is one of them. In ever culture there is some sort of making things tidy and neat. It’s a way that we survive. If we didn’t do things like this , we would have waste in our homes and would die of some sort of disease. Yes, in the concentration camps it may seem completely useless to clean oneself, but I made the prisoners be human. Less then a normal human, but yet human nonetheless. Without these rules, could it be possible that the prisoners would revolt, and demand more rights. But the Jews and criminals didn’t revolt, possibly because they had their basic needs met, so their body told them they didn’t need to fight to live. The rules were not their for maybe the prisoners, but for the guards. The guards also had a hard time killing men, so if guards could be convinced that the prisoners were getting good treatment, they might not be so bad. They could do their job because they were brainwashed somewhat that they prisoners weren’t treated all that bad. The rules in Auschwitz may have seemed pointless to the prisoners, but they held a great deal of value to the guards.

Chapter 2

“…As for the high numbers they carry an essentially comic air about them, like the words ‘freshmen’ or ‘conscript’ in ordinary life. The typical high number is a corpulent, docile, and stupid fellow: he can be convinced that leather shoes are distributed at the infirmary to all those with delicate feet, and can be persuaded to run there and leave his bole of soup ‘in your custody’; you can sell him a spoon for three rations of bread, you can send him to the most ferocious of the Kapos to ask him (as happened to me!) if it is true that his is the Kartoffelschalenkommando, the ‘Potato Peeling Command’, and if one can be enrolled in it.(28)”

If life everywhere there are winners and losers. I guess that the concentration camp also had this rule. The newer residents were tricked and confused by other older members who should have had to wisdom and empathy to tell them about real life in the concentration camp. But the didn’t. Sure it was funny that these ignorant newcomers would go asking to be part of the Potato Peeling Command, but that wasn’t all of it. These old prisoners were indirectly teaching new prisoners to know the rules of the camp. We learn best my mistakes, so when the newer prisoners were told to get new shoes, and it wasn’t real, they learned survival skills. Some of these included not trusting anyone, and learning the power of the officials. But why wouldn’t the old prisoners look down on the new prisoners, and instead of saying, “ha ha, your life sucks” say something like, let me show the ropes here. With all the persecution, you would think that those who had been beaten would say, I have love for my fellow man, and would help him. Maybe it had something to do with that they were not shown the way, so they had so sympathy for others, but maybe it had something to do with the language and clash of cultures once again. Since they couldn’t understand each other, not just verbally, but also culturally, they segregated themselves. These men weren’t Jews, they should have known that all around. People of the same culture will bond together. These men didn’t. What is a man, its not his past, but he does right now. Unfortunately, the Germans judged on the past.

Chapter 1

"With the absurd precision to which we later had to accustom ourselves, the Germans held the roll-call. At the end the officer asked 'Wieviel Stück?' The corporal saluted smartly and replied that there were six hundred and fifty 'pieces' and that all was in order. They then loaded us on to the buses and took us to the station of Carpi. Here the train was waiting for us, with our escort for the journey. Here we received the first blows: and it was so new and senseless that we felt no pain, neither in body nor in spirit. Only a profound amazement: how can one hit a man without anger?(pg. 16)"

Auschwitz was a shame to human kind. Humans are made in the image of God, with senses, with imaginations, with creativity, with love, and to merely talk about such a marvellous person as a thing is a disgrace. We are all equal in God's site. We are all human. Who made one man over another? Who appointed rulers to judge the world?. In Romans 13:1 it says that "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God." That really irritates me. How could God appoint people to rule and be unjust to those who deserve the same as us? But God had a reason for everything, even a tragic thing like WWII. But I guess that we have all been given things. We all posses certain things, and all of us unfortunately do not use then to their fullest extent. I believe that the Nazi’s didn’t use what God gave them to the extent that he wanted them to. The prisoners were wondering the same thing. How could a man beat a man without anger. How is that possible? That was possible because the concentration camp leaders appointed themselves over others. And when the did that, they could look down on others because they truly thought that those under them were no longer human. And because they treated them that way, the prisoners also learned to be less then human. They took blows and slaps that a normal human being would not be able to bear. When the prisoners were hit, they didn’t even feel pain. The Jews were deprived of the right of life, which should never be take away.

Chapter 0

One million people died in Auschwitz. That means that if the average person lives to be about 80 years old, for every hour of your life, eight people would die. It was cruelty in one of the highest regards. Not only to just merely death, but more then death, loss of hope. Children were taken from their parents, only to find out later that they too were to be killed mercilessly. Or maybe they’d get “lucky and have some crazy and perverted scientist kill them in the name of science. Such things should never happen again. It wouldn’t be half as bad if the kids had gone with the parents so they could die together, it wouldn’t be half as bad had people had hope in a future. But the concentration camps were designed to destroy hope, and hope they did destroy. “There was no God in Auschwitz. There were such horrible conditions that God decided not to go there.” – Libusa Breder, Jewish prisoner, Auschwitz. Hope was lost, the only thing that possibly remained was instinct to survive, a most of that was burned up in a dark room anyway. So if hope was lost, what truly are human beings? If such a place would cause questions like this, what kind of place is this? A place where human beings are treated worse then animals, and expected to do more. A place where life was decided in a mere second, a life that took 9 months to create now takes 1 second to destroy. May this never happen again.