Survival In Auschwitz by Primo Levi

The Holocaust which was one of many of the controversial events that have happened in the history of our world demonstrated a significant amount of cruelty and dehumanization. Because of such a controversial event, many have suffered through physical and unfortunately psychological upheaval and distress. With previous knowledge and novels’ read on the Holocaust, it came to be known that the event was triggered through obedience and conformity due to the not specifically the Germans’ beliefs of anti-Semitic and propaganda, but more of leader Adolf Hitler. The time of the Holocaust was used to dehumanize which enhanced the understanding of mental health and human psychology. During the Holocaust, many psychological principles affected individuals forever. The principles include groupthink and of course knowing the outcome of the event. Such principles sooner explain the reality of life because it stresses how individuals react due to their past experiences like the Holocaust and most importantly how traumatic events build them as who they are today.  Innocent Jews went through starvation, terrible working conditions, and the elimination of race through torture such as gas chambers. Furthermore, the history of this controversial event is now being used to be alert of the health and wellness of those who have gone through such events that sooner change their behavior and mentality for the better or even worse.

In the past many horrific events have happened that many people choose not to believe. One of those events was the Holocaust. Millions of innocent people died during this tragedy, but what about the people who survived? How did this affect them? A survivor, Elie Wiesel, wrote about his experience during the Holocaust, and how it changed him as a person. In his book “Night”, the main character Elie went to the concentration camp Auschwitz. Throughout the story, he gained new character traits that he carried for the rest of his life.

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.

Over six million people died in the Holocaust. Family, friends, and other people with the same ethnicity that they didn't even know were killed left and right. From the crematory to getting hung. Was it best for them to help each other or was it to protect themselves and not care about anyone else? (Prompt 5)

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

From 1933 to 1945, millions of lives were thrown into chaos because of the Holocaust. Families were ripped apart and values were washed away as citizens were forcefully placed in concentration camps to either be immediately killed or to work until they died. Every person within the camps faced unthinkable trauma. Once everyone was released, the prisoners began to search for lost loved ones and a sense of normality. However, the anguish did not end with the end of the Holocaust. Following the Holocaust, first generation survivors developed abnormal values, societal dependence, and a need to avoid the topic of the Holocaust as an effect of their trauma; these side effects were then passed down to future generations

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

As the world around the authors begins to collapse, they are faced with evil and the uncertainty of whether to face the events with optimism or pessimism. Levi begins his experience on a more negative note as he describes what it's like to be on the bottom. “I have learnt that I am haftling. My number is 174517,” (page 27). Levi has lost hope in his own identity. He isn't optimistic or pessimistic, he is indifferent because he feels he is no longer a man, but a property of the Nazis. Levi also demonstrates negativity during his stay at Ka-Be. As he sits and watches the Jews do their usual morning ritual and march he describes how the Germans

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.

85 years ago, over a 12 year period, nearly six million Jews were killed in a genocide called The Holocaust. The Holocaust was led by the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler was their leader. The mass murders took place at concentration camps throughout Europe. The majority of concentration camps resided in Poland and Germany. Many people believe there were only a few concentration camps. “However, researchers found that the Nazis had actually established 20,000 camps between 1933 and 1945” (“How Many Camps,” n.d.). In this paper I will be discussing the largest concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau.

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.

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, albeit uncommon, disposition, it would seem as though the Gods were always smiling upon him. Although throughout the novel primo is characterized as a very willing and competent individual, one can not say that his personality or his training as a chemist

There used to be places that were known for torture, forced labor, and murder. People were dragged out of their own homes to be brought there. These places were called concentration camps. They were the largest Nazi killing centers and they took the lives of over a million Jews. The camps are an important part of history that we will never forget.

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.

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,