Analysis of the Theme of Survival in Auschwitz Essay

The feeding of the prisoners was a major issue in the concentration camps during the holocaust. The jewish prisoners were fed three times a day in the concentration camps, those three times were morning, noon, and evening. (living conditions, labor and executions) It wasn’t the amount of food given a day that was an issue the nutritional value that the Nazis had for the concentration camps. (living conditions, labor and executions) When the Nazis would feed the prisoners they gave the less physically demanding workers one thousand three hundred calories per day and gave the ones who engaged in hard labor one thousand seven hundred calories per day. (living conditions, labor and executions) This was an issue because after several weeks on such starvation in the camps, most prisoners began to experience what is called organic deterioration that led to the well known “Muzulman” state. (living conditions, labor and executions) This was when the prisoners ended being so tiny, extreme physical exhaustion, and soon ended up in death. (living conditions, labor and executions) In march 31, 1942 the WVHA established a minimum working day of 11 hour in all concentration camps. Labor in some concentration camps was the way of destroying prisoners, they worked them until they died. (living conditions, labor and executions) The prisoners usually labored in various sectors of

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.

Primo Levi was taking from his detention center, Germans invaded and took over from there he was sent to a concentration camp concentration were he had no voice which was called Buna. At Buna they took his personal belongings such as his shoes and clothes. To make sure everyone looked the same they made everyone cut of any strand of hair from their bodies, from top to bottom and to also be sure they

The conditions of the camp were unbearable. The prisoners were barely fed, mainly bread and water, and were cramped in small sleeping arrangements. "Hundreds slept in triple-tiered rows of bunks (Adler 51)." In the quarters that they stayed, there were no adequate cleaning facilities or restrooms for the prisoners. They rarely were able to change clothes which meant the "clothes were always infested with lice (Swiebocka 18)." Those were sick went to the infirmary where also there were eventually killed in the gas chambers or a lethal injection. The Germans did not want to have anyone not capable of hard work to live. Prisoners were also harshly punished for small things such as taking food or "relieving themselves during work hours (Swiebocka 19)." The biggest punishment was execution. The most common punishment was to receive lashings with a whip.

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

The sleeping conditions for jew were in terrible conditions. “Several hundred three-tier wooden bunk beds were installed in each building” (“Auschwitz…”) The barracks were highly populated with rats and other vermin. There were straw mattresses for people who had abdominal issues (“Auschwitz…”). To many who

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.

Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi and Night by Elie Wiesel are two tragic stories about the experience of these Holocaust survivors during the horrors of the second world war. In the 1940’s it was a very difficult time for Jews who were victimized by the German Nazis and sent to concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, where conditions were worse than imaginable. Elie first entered a concentration camp when he was 12, along with his father, mother, and three sisters. Levi, an Italian jew, was 24 when he was sent to the camps for participating in a resistance group, but unlike Wiesel, did not have his family by his side. Levi, despite his bitter character, acquires hope from the humanity and compassion of others while Wiesel, even with his strong relationship with his father, can't maintain his desire to hope for survival or alliances.

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.

The inmates eat soup while in the camp. When the time comes for them to get their bowls filled, Levi professes they “have an animal hurry” to consume their food (Survival 69). This metaphor suggests the men’s animalistic behavior due to their severe thirst and hunger. The concept of dehumanization carried out by the Schutzstaffel primarily targets the prisoners‘ “identity” and “community” (“Dehumanization”). Each man’s struggle to survive in Auschwitz depends on their principal focus of themselves. They can “no longer elicit compassion or other moral responses”, every man endures on his own, and they cannot think of others. Ironically, waiting around to pass time satisfies the inmates; “ [they] are always happy to wait” (Survival 104). Levi rationalizes their content when Alex tells them to wait and says they have “the complete obtuse inertia of spiders in old webs” (Survival 104). He compares his Kommando to spiders, as they sit lifelessly, trapped in an abandoned labyrinth. The action of waiting brings the men solace, for once, as “time moves smoothly” and they have no duties to complete (Survival 104).

On top were the SS men, who were superior supervisors of the various camps; next in line were the kapos who were trustee inmates who supervised the prisoners; under them were the Aryan German criminals and political dissidents; underneath the pure-blooded germans were the Prominenz—which was a unique group of people. “It was the name given to camp officials from the Häftling-director to the Kapos, to the cooks, the nurses, the night-guards, even to the hut sweepers” (Levi 90). Included in this group were also some fort- unate Jewish prisoners, which Levi believes to be an anomaly. Levi writes “…if one offers a position of privilege to a few individuals in a state of slavery, exacting in ex- change the betrayal of a natural solidarity with their comrades, there will certainly be someone who will accept” (Levi 91). Levi believed that when given command of his peers, the Jewish prominent will almost always abuse his power in order to display com- petency for the position as well as unload their hatred for their oppressors onto their sub- jects. Finally, the disoriented mass of religious Jews were on the bottom. They were from various regions throughout Europe including—but not limited to—Italy, France, Poland, Germany, Hungary, Ukraine, Greece, Russia, etc.

In looking back upon his experience in Auschwitz, Primo Levi wrote in 1988: ?It is naïve, absurd, and historically false to believe that an infernal system such as National Socialism (Nazism) sanctifies its victims. On the contrary, it degrades them, it makes them resemble itself.? (Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, 40). The victims of National Socialism in Levi?s book are clearly the Jewish Haftlings. Survival in Auschwitz, a book written by Levi after he was liberated from the camp, clearly makes a case that the majority of the Jews in the lager were stripped of their human dignity. The Jewish prisoners not only went through a physical hell, but they were psychologically driven under as well. Levi writes, ??the Lager was a great

Primo Levi was a Jewish writer and Holocaust survivor from the concentration Auschwitz. Primo Levi talks about in his book called “Survival in Auschwitz” about what it means to survive. There are many quotes that stand out in his book and have strong importance to them.

World War II was a war that took many lives from civilians that deserved to have a life of their own. They were ordinary people who were victims from a horrible and lengthy war that brought out the worst in some people. In Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz, Levi gives a detailed account of his life in a concentration camp. Primo Levi was a young Italian chemist who was only twenty-four years old when he was captured by the Nazis in 1943. He spent two long and torturous years at Auschwitz before the Russian army freed the remaining prisoners of the camp. He tells about life inside the camp and how tough it was to be held like an animal for so long. He says they were treated as

In June, 1940, the Auschwitz Concentration Camp opened; this camp would later be the home and death place of hundreds of thousands of prisoners. Jews, Poles, and Gypsies made up the large majority of prisoners in the camp. Life in Auschwitz included living in undesirable conditions, and being kept on a very strict schedule day in, day out.