A Short Story: Maria's Twenty-Seventh Day At Auschwitz

Using these two accounts of two very different experiences, conclusions can be drawn on how realistic the fictional story of Sophie’s experience within Auschwitz. Above, short summaries of Frankl and Mozes are instated so the two can be distinguishable. Now, using specific details for each of their stories to compare to Styron’s novel will be used to determine the nature of the story of Sophie.

     “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.

The words inscribed above the Auschwitz concentration camp read; "Arbeit Macht Frei,” meaning, “work brings freedom.” These deceiving words gave unsuspecting prisoners hope that they could get out of the most destructive concentration camp during the entire Holocaust. This concentration camp would kill over one million people. Auschwitz will be fully analyzed, starting with the early stages of Auschwitz, then the Jews and the horrors of Auschwitz, and finally the final days of Auschwitz. The events that took place at Auschwitz concentration camp were horrifying and led to the death of millions.

Having only the memories of loved ones that you will never see again. Being stripped of all your pride and dignity and the only person you have is yourself. Feeling like you are losing yourself in the process, these are the feelings of being in Buna concentration camp. Auschwitz survivor stated “Today in our times, hell must be like this."

Auschwitz was one of the most infamous and largest concentration camp known during World War II. It was located in the southwestern part of Poland commanded by Rudolf Höss. Auschwitz was first opened on June 14, 1940, much later than most of the other camps. It was in Auschwitz that the lives of so many were taken by methods of the gas chamber, crematoriums, and even from starvation and disease. These methods took "several hundreds and sometimes more than a thousand" lives a day. The majority of the lives killed were those of Jews although Gypsies, Yugoslavs, Poles, and many others of different ethnic backgrounds as well. The things most known about Auschwitz are the process people went through when entering the camp and

In 1940 Auschwitz was established in the suburbs of Oswiecim. Oswiecim is a Polish city that was annexed to the Third Reich by the Nazis. Auschwitz was established because there were too many Polish people in the local prisons. In 1942 Auschwitz became a death camp and it was the largest known. (http://auschwitz.org/, n.d.) The camp was expanded throughout its existence, this resulted in Auschwitz consisting of three camps. The three camps were Main Camp, Birkenau, and Monowitz. Main Camp was known as Auschwitz I, Birkenau was known as Auschwitz II, and Monowitz was known as Auschwitz III. (Preisler, n.d.) Auschwitz was liberated in 1945. “Historians and analysts estimate the number of people murdered at Auschwitz somewhere between 2.1 million

Everyone who has taken a history course that goes through the 20th century knows about the atrocities performed in Nazi Germany; 11 million people exterminated and countless others put into concentration camps with unimaginable conditions. But most people do not try to explain how the German soldiers could do these things to other human beings. Primo Levi in his book Survival in Auschwitz attempts to answer this question. He begins by explaining the physical and psychological transformation of the prisoners and how that enabled the Germans to see the prisoners as inhuman and therefore oppress-able. Levi believes that the Germans treated the Jewish prisoners horrendously because of the prisoner’s

When reading the novel Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi, the reader wonders whether his survival is attributed to his will to survive or his luck. Reading the novel Survival in Auschwitz by author Primo Levi leads one to wonder whether his survival is attributed to his indefinite will to survive or a very subservient streak of luck. Throughout the novel, he is time and again spared from the fate that supposedly lies ahead of all inhabitants of the death camp at Auschwitz. Whether it was falling ill at the most convenient times or coming in contact with prisoners who had a compassionate, uncommonly positive disposition, it would seem as though some higher power wanted to spare his life. Although Levi is characterized as a willing and intellelectual individual, it ay be that his personality and chemistry training were the sole reasons for his survival. Or, maybe, Levi was just lucky.

Born in Poland, Henia Weit was the youngest of nine children in her family. She lived in a town by the name of Sambor. Unfortunately, the town was bombarded by German soldiers shortly after Hitler started his reign of terror on the Jews. Henia’s family was forced to do laborious work in a ghetto until they were all deported to a concentration camp. Fortunately for Henia, she was able to escape and never went to the concentration camp herself. Instead, she had to survive for several years alone, with only her sister to turn to.

Anxiety washed over the poor boy. It was dark, darker than Zerdek had ever know. With each second that passed, a low mumble could be heard from the corner. Something or someone else was here with him. Wherever here was. He shut his eyes thinking about the light. Thinking about anything that would make it seem like he was back at home. Home. He tried to remember the faces. He tried to remember each of the tree top building. Yet it was a blur. Everything that had happen with-in the last few hours, day, months was a giant blur from him. He had no concept of time. A click came from afar, as light came barreling in. Zerdek let out a low growl as he covered his eyes, unable to adjust to the light quickly enough. Arms reached out and pulled to two

Hana’s experience in Theresienstadt was very unpleasant, but had some silver linings. Hana and the other Jews were still left on the verge of starvation and were yelled at by the Nazis. The silver lining of being in the concentration camp at Theresienstadt for Hana was being able to go to music and art classes, and Hana made some friends. This was evident when the author described how there were rats and bugs in the food and how the commandant would order them with a very harsh tone. The author also stated how Hana would draw and sing during the secret classes and Hana’s friends were very kind to her. All these facts, summarize Hana's life in Thersienstadt during the second World

The Holocaust was one of the most brutal, dehumanizing events in the world. American history explains how the United states fought for liberation of the many occupied by the Nazis. Throughout my years in school, I have learned about this topic, but not in detail. I had the chance to watch an amazing documentary titled One Day in Auschwitz. It featured a woman named Kitty Hart-Moxon, a Holocaust survivor of Polish-English background. Separated from her family, she was thrown into the well-known death camp, Auschwitz. She described her story of survival to two young girls; they were the same age as Kitty was during that time.

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.

Ruth Bondy writes that the one decision that men did not have to face in Auschwitz-Birkenau in June 1944 was a decision that only the mothers faced. Although many of the women of Theresienstadt were privileged to live with their children in the family camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau, by June 1944 they knew they were going to be sent to the gas chambers. Because the Germans needed working hands they held a selection: the mothers of young children had the choice of presenting themselves to be selected as workers—or staying with their children and being sent to the gas chambers. After six months in Birkenau they had no illusions about saving their children: they knew that their children were being sent to the gas chambers. Only two of about six hundred

Survival in Auschwitz tells of the horrifying and inhuman conditions of life in the Auschwitz death camp as personally witnessed and experienced by the author, Primo Levi. Levi is an Italian Jew and chemist, who at the age of twenty-five, was arrested with an Italian resistance group and sent to the Nazi Auschwitz death camp in Poland in the end of 1943. For ten terrible months, Levi endured the cruel and inhuman death camp where men slaved away until it was time for them to die. Levi thoroughly presents the hopeless existence of the prisoners in Auschwitz, whose most basic human rights were stripped away, when in Chapter 2 he states, "Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits,