Article Summary and Reflection - Essay Example

Borowski has expressed the conditions at the Nazi concentration camps in satiric prose. The common elements between the short stories included but were not limited to the presence of the same main character and the common themes in them. The fundamental theme of the book is that man commits crime first to save himself, then for subjective reasons, and over time, just for the sake of pleasure. Tadek is Tadeusz’s condensed version and Borowski has written most of the accounts from his experience. However, the two characters differ in that while Tadek had a hard shell and was a survivalist Borowski was a man with leadership abilities and a tendency and willingness to help others nobly rather than caring only for himself. While Borowski and the fellow prisoners get presents and letters from home, get the red cross parcels, and have facilities of recreation, health, and entertainment, they are required to dispatch the Jews’ trainloads to the gas chamber. The stories summarize a system developed by the Nazis in which the prisoners commit crimes to acquire food and facilities.

            This account is very engaging for the readers and engaging at the same time. It has a lot to offer in terms of the sufferings of the Jews, the policies of the Nazis, the conditions in the camps, and the inmates’ coping strategies with the system implemented by the Nazis. Borowski has described how a regular human life coexisted with the holocaust. Several traumatic and daunting events have been discussed in the short stories, one of them being the event in which 3000 Jews in a train are directed toward a gas chamber in between a football match. The writer is extremely sympathetic has captured the feelings and points of view of the inmates quite well and has described their activities, behaviors, and actions in context. Rather than asking forgiveness for anybody, the writer has just tried to express the conditions as he had observed. The account made through a series of stories is e unique and very different explanation of the Nazi concentration camps as compared to the usual straight historical narratives. The readers get so involved in them that they start to feel like toe has been to the concentration camps.