Comparing Survival In Auschwitz And Hitler's Lack Of

Dehumanization is when one people group is viewed as subhuman to another people group. The Nazis did everything they could to degrade and dehumanize the Jewish people. When the Jewish people were deported, they were shoved into cattle cars for days long trips with little food, air, or water. All of their personal belongings were stripped from them. The prisoners were shaved bald and referred to only by their assigned numbers, never their real name (Wiesel 22-42). This was all an attempt to dehumanize the Jewish people, making them nothing but a number. On the other hand, the Ukrainians were considered traitors to the Soviet Union and placed below the people of Russia. The blame was placed on the Ukrainian peasants’ shoulders when there was a shortage of grain. Vladimir Lenin, the predecessor of Joseph Stalin wrote a tirade against the kulaks, calling them “bloodsuckers” and “plunderers” (source 1). Although both the Jews and the Kulaks were dehumanized and not seen as citizens of the country they lived in, the dehumanization process was different for

By imprisoning and executing members that opposed his views and were potential threats to his position, Stalin was able to keep control over the USSR by using fear. Hence, this raised up a new ruling elite that he found to be more dependable, as no one dared challenge him for fear of their life.

Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were the most recognizable and known totalitarian leaders in Europe. They both had a great impact on the world's history. Adolf Hitler was the Fuhrer of the III Reich and a leader of the Nazi Party. He is to blame for the break out of the II World War and for the creation of an ideology which caused the holocaust and suffering of many nations. Stalin was a leader of the Soviet Union until 1953.

Almost everyone knows what a monster Adolf Hitler was, but most people do not know that one of the great ally leader of World War II, Joseph Stalin, had committed even greater atrocities than Hitler. Joseph Stalin was a ruthless and yet diligent dictator of the Soviet Union, whose rise to power influenced a multitude of major events in his country’s history. Due to Stalin’s impactful reign, he made the Soviet Union become a global superpower, underwent difficult hardships such as the Great Famine in the Soviet Union, and after his death, caused the Soviet Union to go through a process known as de-Stalinization.

“Then for the first time we became aware that our language lacks words to express this offence, the demolition of a man.”

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.

‘Survival in Auschwitz’, is a book based on the personal experience of the author, Primo Levi, in the death camp at Auschwitz where he was taken prisoner after the arrest. The Nazis took Primo Levi, an Italian Jew and chemist, to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland in 1944, where he and other prisoners endured months of cruel and inhuman treatment, stripped of fundamental rights and forced to work under adverse conditions until death. As the Holocaust survivor, the purpose of writing the book arose from the need to let the world know what was happening at the death camp and level of inhumanity that man can subject his fellow human being to thereby ensuring the memories and stories of the Holocaust will be recognized and live on and are not forgotten.

When it comes to rights and responsibilities, the Nazi soldiers abused their power and diminished Jewish rights. It was their belief (the Nazi soldiers) that it was their job to destroy and end a race, the Jewish race. They were led by the all famous Adolf Hitler. Many are surprised that Adolf Hitler was able to carry his evil plan so far, and others are not surprised at all.

Vladimir Lenin was slowly degrading before Stalin took power. Before Lenin died, he spoke out against Stalin by saying, “Stalin has concentrated enormous power in his hands, and I am not sure he always knows how to use that power with sufficient caution.” (Document 1). As the main creator of the Communist party and the USSR, Lenin warned the public that Stalin’s power was going to get to his head and he was going to become a selfish ruler. This became true when Stalin becomes a full time dictator. He begins abusing his power by creating a police state that brought terror among the public. He forced obedience and crushed any opposition that came in his way. Secret police arrested and killed off any traitors towards Stalin. Stalin, then, betrayed members of the Communist Party. From there, he lofted the Great Purge, which was a campaign of terror against all of his citizens. He killed off anyone that threatened the power and authority against him. Old Bolsheviks and the police themselves were either arrested or eliminated. It is estimated by the end of the Great Purge, Stalin killed as many as 8 to 13 million people. These were all people who supposedly threatened his regime. Even more people got killed, when Stalin started persecuting religious officials and followers. By Lenin’s warning, the Great Purge, and religious persecution, it is evident on how Stalin frequently abused his power during his reign. It also shows how selfish he is towards his

Life for citizens under Stalin’s rule was ruthless. Stalin’s policies and ideas proved that he probably was not a competent leader, which is why he resorted to full-blown communism or “Stalinsm.” Freedom was an idea dangled in front of citizens, but never was a real option. Stalin relied on fear and empty promises. Life under Stalin is interpreted different for everyone due to status and the classes they were divided into, but it was all about censoring them. Multiple sources support that life under Stalin’s rule was not the idea life style and the people did not always agree with Stalin himself, unless they benefited from his rule, but that is debatable as well.

Why was Joseph Stalin a dictator? If he wasn't a dictator, nobody has ever been. He had total control of the country, where people worked, where they lived, even what crops were planted and what was sold, and anybody who spoke out against the Communist party, or Stalin could be imprisoned or killed. Millions were killed under Stalin, some say even more than under Hitler, mainly because the Soviet Union was such a vast country. So, Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) was the dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1929 to 1953. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was transformed from a peasant society into an industrial and military superpower. However, he ruled by terror, and millions of his own citizens died during his brutal reign. Born into poverty, Stalin became involved in revolutionary politics, as well as criminal activities, as a young man."( Robert Service, A History of 20th Century Russia (1997))"

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.

     Hitler came to power in 1935. His basis of hatred was director towards the Jews. One reason for the hatred towards the Jews was because his mother was sick with cancer, and it was a Jewish doctor that could not save her. Hitler had no real friends when he came to power, and he killed all of the ones he did have. Stalin came to power in 1924. They called him, “The man of Many Faces”. The people that really knew him as a person were terrified of him. All of Stalin’s generals were in fear of him, but stayed faithful to him. When Hitler attacked, he moved in with precision accuracy and moved quickly through the town of village he was destroying. Stalin on the other hand took a four to five year period of time to strike all of the villages and towns. Even in death Stalin was a killer. Stalin was paranoid by an assassination on him. To prevent assassination, Stalin would never sleep in the same

Eighteen million Europeans went through the Nazi concentration camps. Eleven million of them died, almost half of them at Auschwitz alone.1 Concentration camps are a revolting and embarrassing part of the world’s history. There is no doubt that concentration camps are a dark and depressing topic. Despite this, it is a subject that needs to be brought out into the open. The world needs to be educated on the tragedies of the concentration camps to prevent the reoccurrence of the Holocaust. Hitler’s camps imprisoned, tortured, and killed millions of Jews for over five years. Life in the Nazi concentration camps was full of terror and death for its individual prisoners as well as the entire Jewish