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.