Solomon Perel Reflection

The book, Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi, is an autobiography that talks about the brutal experience of him in Auschwitz. The book is written as if the reader were to be talking one on one with Levi. He describes to the reader's how he saw the men and women lose their humanity overtime because of the treatment in Auschwitz. Throughout his story he describes the dehumanization and slowly realizes that it was not just his survival and dehumanization, but it was everyone’s. He also explains to the readers how all the prisoners came together as one to retain their humanity because the suffering of one was also the suffering of all. This books teaches the readers that one

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

In the first chapter of the novel,the setting takes place in Sighet,Transylvania and Moshe the Beadle teaches Eliezer on Jewish mysticism.And then one day all the foreign Jews along with Moshe get expelled by a Hungarian police officer.Life is calm in Sighet for awhile until Moshe the Beadle comes and tells Eliezer and the Jews of crazy stories of his near-death experience.He warns the Jews that Nazis will soon threaten their way of life but no one believes him.They only think of him as crazy or a man who wants their pity.The Jews continue to disbelieve that Hitler will do any harm to them until Nazis actually come to their small town and arrest them.This is ironic since the Jews had been given many warnings and continued to stay close minded until that following event.

At the beginning of these chapters they thought their luck was changing, but sadly it was not. The Kommandant and the Oberscharfuher were talking about how Roosevelt was dead and how they would win. After this happened they shortly arrived at Lager Tekla a small Hungarian Jewish women’s camp. Magda was separated from the them because she was already a Lager worker. Magda’s barrack was bombed out, but she escaped just in time and joined jutka and mother. They were later herded to Schonau Lager. At this camp they were a little scared of the americans constant bombing. At this new camp there were some captured soldiers who offered bits and pieces of information about what was going on in the war. Jutka, Magda, and mother were forced to go on a march, but

Primo Levi was one of these survivors. In Survival in Auschwitz, Levi struggles to articulate the atrocities that occurred in Auschwitz while simultaneously admitting the impossibility of such an undertaking. As he confesses in his book, “…our language lacks words to express this offence, the demolition of a man.” A scientist by trade, Levi speaks of his time in Auschwitz in bare, almost clinical terms. Two popular critiques have arisen from this approach: the first, that Levi does not explore his emotions, and the second, that he does not court readers. I’d argue, however, that it is this very boundary built between author and reader that makes Levi’s testimony so effective.

From the first few lines of the novel, it is immediately apparent that even Levi is aware of how lucky he is. He begins his book with the phrase “It was my good fortune to be deported to Auschwitz only in 1944, that is, after the German government had decided, owing to the growing scarcity of labour, to lengthen the average lifespan of the prisoners destined for elimination” (Levi 9). This means that if he was captured prior to 1944, his story may have not even been told. Life in Monowitz was certainly not easy, so one can only imagine the conditions that existed before the Nazi war machine

Obviously nothing justifies the heinous treatment of Jews in concentration camps, but Levi gives us reasons why he believed the SS were able to treat Jews in this way. He believed that the prisoner’s appearance after a few days, “dirty and repugnant,” could have been a source of the terrible treatment; it is much easier to oppress those who look almost inhuman. Levi also believed the treatment was just another way to prove racial superiority. The ability to completely suppress and

In the story, the people believe that they're being sent on a vacation. They think while they're gone that the Nazis are going to rob them of their things. Little do the Jews know they are not going to be returning to their homes but that they are going to be sent to a concentration camp where they will fight to survive. This is quite the opposite of their idea of a vacation.

In chapter 2, the reader can infer that the Jews turn against one another. For example, When Mrs. Schächter was yelling about the fire, the Jews attempted to calm down/soothe her. As time passed, her screams excelled and were causing the passengers to become upset and anxious. They then started to beat Mrs. Schächter to silence her. The reader can also infer that this behaviour continues throughout the novel because nobody can trust anyone and the Jews had to fend for themselves in these harsh concentration camps.

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.

In the memoir If This Is A Man Primo Levi offers an insight into his life during the brutal and inhuman acts inflicted upon the Jews by the SS Soldiers during the Holocaust. Levi tells the story of his experiences in the Auschwitz concentration camp, and the divisions between his fellow haftlinge and the German soldiers due to the significant differences between language and culture. The results of extreme anti-Semitism led to the dehumanisation and de-socialization of the prisoners, who often had limited understanding of the soldiers’ intentions. Further, the prisoners were largely segregated due to the diverse nationalities, religions, and ethnicities. The prisoners were stripped of all possessions and their loved ones, though one facet that

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.

The prisoners in Auschwitz were treated very poorly and the world came crashing down on them even before they were brought there. When Levi was informed that he was going to be going to Auschwitz from Turin, Italy he did not know what to expect but he did not expect this. He said, "dancing before my eyes I see the spaghetti which we had just cooked, Vanda, Luciana, and I, at the sorting-camp when we suddenly heard the news that we would leave for here the following day; and were eating it and we stopped" (74). He was not aware that he would not be able to eat like this ever in the camp and was almost convinced that he would never eat like that again period. He thought about this in one of the rare moments that he had a chance to think about his past life that was very depressing for anyone to think about. They all thought they would be stuck there forever which it seemed liked already.

In 1944 Levi was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp complex where he was held for eleven long months. Levi was one of the 20 out of the 650 camp inmates that came out alive. Levi gained German language skills and read German publications on chemistry while at the concentration camp. Levi’s academic qualifications and professional experiences scored him a job as an assistant in IG Farben's Buna Werke laboratory that was intended to produce synthetic rubber. Thus writers attribute Levi’s survival to skills as a chemist. In 1947 Levi started running a chemical consultancy with a friend. It was not until 1948 that Levi gave up his career as a chemist and started working SIVA which was a paint

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,