This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen: Term Paper

During the Holocaust, people in the Nazi’s custody were treated as less than human. According to “Jakob’s Story”, the Nazi’s gave their prisoners little food and only one meal a day. Jakob writes “we ate one meal a day and it consisted of soup with potato peels; scraps of food from the SS” (Blankitny, paragraph 17). Here one can see that the Nazi’s looked down upon their prisoners and treated them as less than

“The SS made us increase our pace. “Faster you swine, you filthy sons of bitches.” (pg 81 pg parag 2) This is the first example of how feeling dehumanized can break the spirits of the strongest wills by the SS comparing the Jews and others in the concentation camp to swines and, calling them names. That can break peoples spirits and lower their self esteem. “ I raised my eyes to look at my fathers face leaning over mine, to try to discover a smile or something resembling one upon the aged, dried-up coutenance.” “ Nothing” “ Not the shadow of an expression.” “Beaten”(pg 65 parag

The sullen narrative This Way for the Gas Ladies and Gentlemen poignantly recounts the events of a typical day in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. The author, Tadeusz Borowski, was Polish Holocaust survivor of Auschwitz, the series of death camps responsible for the deaths of the largest number of European Jews. Recounted from a first-person point of view, the novel unfolds at dawn as the unnamed narrator eats breakfast with a friend and fellow prisoner, Henri. Henri is a member of Canada, the labor group responsible for unloading the Jewish transports as they arrive into the camps. They are interrupted by a call for Canada to report to the loading ramps. Upon the arrival of the transport, the narrator joins Henri in

The Jews had been starved while being detained in forced labor camp. Those who weren’t fit to work were killed and cremated. The most eye-opening description of the Jewish peoples’ state in the concentration camp came at the very end of the book. After being freed, Wiesel looked in a mirror for the first since his arrival at the camp. Wiesel described his reflection as a “corpse” and stated “the look in his eyes… has never left me.” (Wiesel 115). Not only had the Nazis carried out a brutal campaign on the Jews’ physical being, but they had also infiltrated deep into their psyche. Upon arrival at camps, all Jews’ were forced to hand over all of their clothes and wearing matching uniforms. After that, the prisoners’ were sent to the barber. Wiesel described the process, stating, “[The barbers’] clippers tore out our hair, shaved every hair on our bodies.” (Wiesel 35). After this process, every Jew was tattooed with a number. This process lead to the ego-death of every prisoner. They were no longer people: they were numbers. Nothing differentiated one Jew from another, besides the numbers tattooed on them. This horrendous act could only be classified as psychological torture, carried out by monsters who had lost control of their own

The concentration camps from World War II are part of a painful and tragic incident that we have learned about in school for many years. And while we are taught the facts, we may not fully understand the emotional impact it had upon the humans involved. Upon reading Night by Elie Wiesel, readers are given vivid descriptions of the gruesome and tragic behaviors that the Jews were forced to endure inside he treacherous concentration camps. Among all of the cruelties that the Jews were exposed to, a very significant form of the callous behaviors was the demoralization of the prisoners. Each inmate was given a tattoo of a number, and that tattoo became their new identity within the camp. Every prisoner was presented with tattered uniforms that became

The Nazi army degraded the Jewish people in many number of ways. One way was crushing their self esteem, they gave them numbers and referred to them by the numbers. Elie says on page 50, "I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time." This shows they did not have any confidence in themselves, they were totally oblivious to their own feelings. They were just bodies with one purpose, to die. After they got to the camp they had no way to get achievements to gain any sort of confidence. As Elie states on page 52, there was only one way to gain anything, In fact, “I was pleased with what was happening to him: my gold crown was safe. It could be useful to me

in the concentration camps, that death was inevitable in the camps, so surviving alongside their

During the Holocaust, the living conditions for the Jewish population were horrifying and unthought of. The lack of sanitary facilities meant they had to remove dirt and pests from clothing by waiting in a line that took up most of the day. The barracks that the prisoners slept in was in terrible conditions and the rooms were damp with leaky roofs (“Auschwitz…”). The health and how the jewish lived was no concern of the Nazi soldiers.

Shock, apathy, and disillusionment were three psychological stages that the prisoners of the Nazi concentration camps experienced. Ironically, it took an event of such tragedy and destruction to enable us to learn more about how the human mind responds to certain situations. Frankl’s methods for remaining positive can be used by every human being to give them a meaning in their lives regardless of what predicament or mental state they are in – it is in many ways like a phoenix risen from the

The Germans in charge of coming up with a sufficient means of transportation had a heavy sense of superiority in that their prisoners were lower than animals. They had only tried to maintain the cheapest, most efficient method of transit of the Jews to their concentration camp. The deportees who survived were left with a scarring imprint of this trip, as it was the first branch of their torture, for most, the rest of their lives. After two interviews with two different survivors, it is inferred that the same approach was used for all the prisoners being transported to their destination of their demise. The people who were forced to endure this dehumanizing means of transit underwent a complete stripping of humanity that foreshadowed their ultimate

“The camp looked as though it had been through an epidemic: empty and dead” (47); even when there is a break in between the horror and pain of working for Nazis in concentration camps and suffering from hunger, it is dead, empty and inhuman; this meaningful passage about the complete and utter truth of concentration camps comes from a memoir, Night, by Elie Wiesel. Vocabulary in this passage, is nothing short of exemplary, the words completely compliment the message being shared in this quote. Elie Wiesel describes the atrocious Buna camp as if it were through an epidemic, an outbreak, rendering people empty and dead due to starvation, lack of sleep, and over exertion. This paints a complete and thorough visual of how he viewed concentration

With essentially nothing to live for and no reason to go on, many of the prisoners gave up

The short story “The Death of Schillinger” was a story about a First Sergeant whom ruled over labor sector ‘D,’ a laboring portion of Birkenau which was formally known as the Auschwitz extermination camp. Schillinger was a short stocky man and was truly evil at his essence; “He visited the crematoria regularly and liked to watch people being shoved into the gas chambers.” (pp.144) One day in August of 1943, the SS were unloading a transport and preparing to load stripped Jews into the gas chambers. However, before this could be done Schillinger took a liking to one of the nude women and grabbed her out of line; she threw gravel in his eyes,

INTRO:Tadeusz Borowski is a polish poet and short story writer who grew up in a time during the holocaust. He published most of his works for the underground press as they were brutally honest from his personal experience. He struggled in search of good moral values despite his Nazi occupation. In his short story “This way for the gas, ladies and gentlemen” was set in a concentration camp in Auschwitz. The narrator was a polish prisoner who worked under Nazi rule, we can assume it is based on Borowski’s real life.

In the Auschwitz documentary Kitty Hart-Moxon gave an explanation of what had occurred during the Holocaust; selection and explains how to survive. Kitty Hart-Moxon stated, “When you arrived on the train, women and children and the elderly were sent directly to their death in the gas chambers. You could hear people suffocating for about twenty minutes, and then it was over” (Documentary: A Day In Auschwitz). If you weren't fit and didn't pass the selection test you were considered weak, and got put to your death. In the Auschwitz documentary Kitty Hart Moxon explains if you passed the selection “You were stripped down of your clothes and valuables, your hair was shaved off….and you would be tattooed with a number.” (Documentary: A Day In Auschwitz). Now, comparing the Auschwitz documentary to the excerpt Night, Elie Wiesel focused on one subject: selection. “ We knew what it meant. An SS would examine us.. to see if we were fit enough.” (Wiesel 308). The victims and prisoners went through a selection process. Men were separated from women along with children. A Nazi, usually an SS physician, looked quickly at each person to decide if he or she was strong and healthy enough for forced labor. The SS officer then selected the weak; victims did not know that individuals were being selected to live or die. Carefully examining both of the mediums subjects, the Auschwitz documentary had a wide