Survival in Auschwitz - Essay Example

Assignment Auschwitz is a city in Poland which was a hub of concentration camps during the Nazi and Hitler era. It was a network of Nazi Germany Concentration and extermination camps built and managed by the Third Reich in the Polish are under the control of Germany. It was the largest concentration camps built anywhere in the world which consisted of Auschwitz-1, Auschwitz-2 and Auschwitz-3 as well as 45 satellite network camps. The life at such camps was full of turmoil and hardships. Jews used to be transported by trains into these camps, and then were segregated according to their ability to function as Auschwitz-2 functioned as the site for the extermination of Jews. It had resulted in a total of 960,000 deaths of Jews over the years when the Third Reich was governing this part of Primo Levi was an Italian who was arrested in 1943 and deported to the city of Auschwitz, where he spent the next few months of his life in the most inhumane conditions he ever witness. Along with 650 other Italian Jews, he was loaded into a freight train which took them to Auschwitz. The train journey was 4 day long and no one was allowed to eat or drink water during the time of the journey. Apart from such severe restrictions, the inmates were also not allowed to talk to anyone else in the train. Primo Levi accounts these stories and describes them as the “most severe hardships” which could have been effectuated on people. According to Levi’s writings and accounts of whatever he had witnessed at the camp, he writes about the kind of solidarity that was present among the various prisoners and inmates. This camp was one where people came in alone and died alone; no one could save anyone. It was not in the hands of a person to be able to safeguard someone else, even if he were a child or an old person. Auschwitz was one such place, therefore, where people spent time alone. However, Levi writes that despite this distance that people maintained from each other, there also was a sense of belonging and affiliation towards each other. This was because all the people there were stuck in the same situation and thus through various tasks, ideas and activities, were able to form their own groups and carry out normal living as far as they could. People tried to help each other and be on the lookout for each other; their one common enemy were the Germans and all Jews were collectively against the kind of extreme situations they were being thrust into by them. This unity thus brought them together and is what is spoken about largely within the confines of the book by Levi. Other authors have tried to write articles and papers on the same trying to cite Primo Levi’s works and trying to make their readers comprehend the kind of life that the inmates were made to live forcibly. When they reached Auschwitz, the Third Reich went on the job of segregating them according to their abilities. This, the words of Primo Levi, was the most horrific task. People used to be differentiated one the basis of children, old men, working and able men and women. People who according to the Nazis were not in the correct condition to work or were minor, they were sent to the concentration camps for their extermination. Approximately 135 people were selected to stay back at Auschwitz, the rest all were sent to the Gas chambers. This was a common practice at Auschwitz and Levi was utterly humiliated and horrified to witness such dramatic death encounters taking shape in front of their very eyes. The life expectancy at these Auschwitz concentration camps was very low, never staying beyond the period of three months. All in all, there was never a ray of hope for a person who was deported to such concentration camps. However, Levi was able to get himself out of the camp after spending 11 months in the most disastrous conditions ever. (Piccirillo, Ryan A.) Piccirillo, Ryan A. The food supply at the camp of Auschwitz was very pathetic. The Nazi Germans had prepared in their minds that these people did not require food to survive, and therefore they made sure that the food quantities were restricted. As a result of the horrendous food supply, Levi witnessed fellow inmates dying out of hunger and starvation. All this while, the Nazi Germans took no notice of the pathetic conditions the inmates were living in. Any protest or disobedience would result into ultimate death. At the time during the concentration camps, many of the inmates used to run a market where they would deal with their goods. Life at Auschwitz was not a total negative affair. It had shaded of positivity too, and that reflected when the inmates would trade each other’s commodities for something crucial and important they required. Despite the kind of hardships and struggles that the Jews were made to undergo, Levi’s book titled, ‘Survival in Auschwitz’ states that there was a certain amount of solidarity among the people living in those concentration camps. Levi was liberated by the Soviet Army that helped people to evacuate the camps after a certain amount of time, but before that happened, he was forced to live under the ruthless conditions that the Germans provided for them, along with his inmates. All the Jews were subject to a vast amount of humiliation and embarrassment by the Germans around them but what bound them together was the fact that since they were all subject to the same kind of embarrassment, they were able to share their woes with each other. People stopped making fun of others because it was understood that they were all caught in and were part of the same situation. The surroundings that they were made to live in were not at all conducive however, all the inmates were able to survive together only because of the motivation and confidence that they helped each other to receive. (Zapotoczny, Walter S) The Jews had made their own small groups within the camps; usually after hard days of work they would sit around and gather in a corner and trade goods that had been rationed or stolen. They thus had set up their own lifestyle and community within the camps with a view of making life go on no matter what the circumstances might be. They had set up their personal economic laws to follow which helped to bring about the formation of a community of their own and put forth their abilities to carry out daily activities of life despite difficult situations. The Jews were not able to meet the requirements for the basic needs of their lives; they did not have the means to carry out activities that other people would be able to on a routine basis. This gave them a great amount of trouble, however, Levi writes that in this feature, all the people were with each other and helped each other a great deal. Their living conditions were terrible, however, with whatever space they were provided, the inmates helped each other survive somehow. The food and rations were also very limited and less and thus there was a trend of helping older people and children during such times of need. A small family was thus formed within the concentration camps, of different Jews from all walks of life. They were also able to share their emotional pain together as they often sat together and discussed the kind of struggle they were personally going through because of being locked up in Auschwitz. They had thus been able to secure and conjure up their own social and economic world where they could bring that world to be as close as the lives that they were leading prior to the Third Reich and Hitler’s horrifying ideals. Levi has been able to, through a very narrative approach; depict the ways in which people in the concentration camps of Auschwitz were trying to keep themselves alive in various ways. It has been stated that in order to stay alive and well on this planet, one must be able to make and maintain social and cordial relations with people around them because the presence of people in one’s lives helps a person go ahead and understand the intricacies of the world as well as of himself or herself. The same happened within the camps here as people began to unite and bring together harmony in their ways of leading every single day that was granted to them by the miracle of God. (Levi, Primo) Through the pages of his book, Levi has tried not to depict a very ghastly tale of whatever went on within the camps; he has tried to provide a much unbiased judgement and argument by pointing out in a very stoic manner, that despite the hardships, there was a familial tone that people maintained among themselves that helped them get on with their lives. Primo Levi’s modus operandi is thus about how people survived in Auschwitz during the course of the holocaust and terrible turmoil that they were made to go through. It is human nature to be able to adapt to one’s surroundings in all eventualities and then try and make relations with whatever people one might have around them. If people are bound by a common motive, then no matter where they come from, they will certainly have a certain amount of unity in whatever it is that they do. The same thing happened in the concentration camps where the author has tried to prove, through various examples of mini levels of growth and development, how unity was widespread among the people even though they were going through the same tough time. There have been numerous examples of people trying to do good deeds for others in terms of sharing whatever little food or clothing that they have, in many books and movies made on the same. However, Levi accounts for such personal experiences that he himself underwent during his stay in the concentration camps. It is very tough to be able to maintain a stance in life as well as certain amount of stability when a person’s death is staring him stark naked in the eye; thus in such times of need, people were there for each other. Everyone was aware of the fact that they were dying together in the gas chambers, and at least that was enough to give them a small sliver of hope regarding the fact that they would not be leaving the earth alone. Assurance was necessary to keep them going; something that brought them close to each other, without them even knowing. The various prisoners tried to distract themselves by thinking of other things; they did this only with the help of each other. During times of bitter cold and hunger, they tried to talk about different things as well as help each other think about other things than these main topics of concern so as to be able to find a way to resist these basic pleasures of life. This is how they helped each other and brought about a sense of unity even though the concentration camp was a place where people went in alone and came out the same way. In conclusion, Auschwitz was a terrifying concentration camp where Jews were locked up and made to do a great amount of hard work and labour, and were subsequently killed in the gas chambers. Primo Levi’s work is an account of such a life lived during the time of the holocaust and how he as one of the prisoners managed to escape alive. Furthermore, the book talks about the kind of security and solidarity that each person within the camp was able to prove the other with and how the camp was not only about being n individual entity or part of the camp. Works Cited Zapotoczny, Walter S. "Book Review Survival in Auschwitz." 2005. Web. 9 June 2011. Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz. New York: Classic House, 2008. Print. Piccirillo, Ryan A. "Moral Adaptation in Primo Levi's "Survival in Auschwitz" - Student Pulse."Academic Articles. Online Academic Journal - Student Pulse. Web. 08 June 2011. . Read More