...During the Holocaust, millions of people died- but that does not tell the full story. The conditions which the prisoners of the concentration camps were forced to live through are inconceivable. Surviving prisoners have since expressed their experiences in different ways. There have also been later generations who have attempted to recapture this tragic time period; however, it is highly unlikely that they have experienced anything like the camps in their lives, which is detrimental in terms of building a believable story. Primo Levi, author and victim of Auschwitz, wrote Survival in Auschwitz to inform others of the horrific events and conditions that he was forced to live through in his journey to survival. Conversely, Roberto Benigni, Italian...
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...The novel, Survival in Auschwitz, explains Primo Levi's experiences and thoughts during his time in the concentration camp. Levi expresses his sufferings to explain how the prisoners were not treated like people by the Germans. They were de-humanized by stamping each individual with numbers, had harsh living conditions and forcing them away from their families. The actions taken place on each individual were not how people should be treated. The German's goal was to deprive any positive human qualities that the Jews consisted. The easiest way to do so, was to strip them away from their family. "In an instant, our [their] women, parents, and children disappeared. We [They] saw them for a short while as an obscure mass at the other end of...
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...Survival in Auschwitz In the book Survival in Auschwitz, the author Primo Levi illustrates the hardships himself and others endured during the capture of Jews in 1943. Originally titled If This Is a Man, Levi expresses captivating images and vivid emotions of his experience of inhumane treatment. The memories indicate the intense and extreme situations all Jews suffered in the totalitarian state of Nazi control. Levi learns an immense amount of survival tactics in order to breathe every waking day of his new life. The weak were tested physically and emotionally as the path of death was effortless, while the road to survival seemed impossible and unachievable. Throughout the narrative, Primo transforms from an apathetic victim to a progressive survivor in the German concentration camp at Auschwitz. The concept of black marketing, knowledge in chemistry and his spirituality all contributed toward the survival of Primo Levi and others in Auschwitz. According to Primo Levi, illegality, deceit, infidelity and sin were all relevant in the concentration camp. These characteristics made up Auschwitz and were used as necessities in order to survive such horrid conditions. Those who were captured and sent to German camps quickly noticed that this was a place where happiness was extinct. Little pieces of bread, shoes or soup bowls were perceived as rather large when consumed and used by other prisoners. The smallest amount of food attracted any inmates, creating trust issues...
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...“Justice and Liberty”. They were sent to Auschwitz Buna, a factory that created synthetic rubber and latex. After eleven astonishing months surviving as a laborer and a chemist inside Auschwitz, Primo Levi and the whole camp was saved by the Russian Army. Once Levi entered the camp his personal background and physical capabilities influenced the nature of his life in Auschwitz, as it did too for many other prisoners. Before World War II began Levi had just gotten a degree in chemistry in the University of Turin. In Auschwitz the Nazis opened a chemistry unit and with his professional background as chemist, Levi was sent to work there. This meant superior living conditions thereby increasing his chances of survival especially during the harsh winter. It is clear from Levis account that a prisoner’s physical condition, mental capacities and skill set were determining factors in...
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...several months later, and explained the brutal treatment that they encountered, but most people did not believe him. 1944 the Nazis gained power in Hungry, and all Jews were crowded into a small ghetto. After a while the Nazis started to deport all the Jews in the ghetto to Auschwitz. On the train the Jews were packed in, with almost no air to breathe, everyone was thirsty and hungry. After some days of traveling the Jews arrived in Czech, and a German officer takes over the train. The officer warned everyone that to give of their valuables or get shot. The train doors were then nailed to prevent people from escaping. Madame Schächter, was the first person to go crazy on the train, she starts to yell about a fire, which is not there. After some time a few boys beat her to silent as her son watches in fear, but the next night she started to yell once again. The Jews arrive in Auschwitz, but it was not as they have been told. They were told although it is a labor camp; the families will be kept as one. As the train traveled through the barb wire they see chimneys of smoke, and there is terrible smell, which they later find out that it is human flesh. The camp that they arrived in is the processing camp for Auschwitz. At Birkenau the Nazis make a selection form those who will live and those who will die. Some of the elders in the camp convince Ellie and his father to lie about their age, in order to stay alive. Ellie and his father were able to stay together, in the work camp. Seeing...
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...however, the Nazis managed to destroy the very essence of justice, and life, for millions of their victims. In Auschwitz, as with all concentration camps, justice was non-existent. There are very important things missing from Auschwitz that Socrates would have considered essential for justice to exist. Let us start by confirming above all things that the main point of punishment is a consequence of wrong doing: the degree of punishment agreeing with the degree of crime (hopefully but not always the case). That is the basic idea of justice in my mind. For Primo Levi and twelve million others of the Nazi’s victims in the concentration camps, this was most certainly not the case. Yes the Nazi’s did have political and criminal prisoners that somewhat earned their spot there but the large majority of the prisoners never did anything wrong whatsoever. This is the first and most clear way in which justice was destroyed. Their crime was existing, whether they Jewish, gypsy, handicap, or what have you. On top of that, the crimes against humanity that the Nazis committed were so horrible, so grotesque and unspeakable, that the only deserving victims of such treatment were the ones responsible for it. Socrates stated "Happiness surely does not consist in being delivered from evils, but in never having them." (Gorgias) The second method in which justice was destroyed in Auschwitz was the deprivation of humanly necessities. This is unjust because they are reducing and devolving the just mind...
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...Alexia Gonzalez Political Science 4823: The Holocaust/ the Shoah Final Paper December 12, 2013 The Comparative Analysis of the Holocaust Ethnic cleansing and genocide are considered to coexist in a spectrum of assaults on nations or religio-ethnic groups. These threats were more prominent during the 20th century which caused massive violations of human rights and jeopardized the overall security of humans. Determinants of ethnic cleansing and genocide root from socio-political factors influenced by deeply embedded ideologies which are manifested by political leaders of specific regime types. During World War II, German authorities targeted Jews and other minority groups like the gypsies and Pols due to their perceived racial inferiority. The German ideology in attempt to eradicate these auxiliary groups led to the conflict known as the Shoah. The Shoah is the biblical word meaning destruction and it is the standard Hebrew term for the murder of European Jewry. The Shoah was the systematic, bureaucratic and state sponsored persecution of six million Jews. Comparable to other ethnic based genocides, Germans believed they were racially superior and that Jews were inferior; and deemed a threat to the “German racial community” resulting in their mass murder. Various interpretations of the Shoah has given rise to similar attitudes and opinions regarding its historical events. The Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database, is one of the largest resources of its kind which includes...
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...The conditions that Levi faced at Auschwitz and how he handles shows the struggle of the basic survival instinct. The entrance sign that was at Auschwitz had the phrase on it “Arbeit Macht Frei” which roughly translates to “work will set you free.” This phrase has been seen in almost every documentary about Auschwitz. It was to inspire hope in the arriving prisoners, but it was nothing more than a lie to keep them motivated to work. Near the end of Levis days at Auschwitz, he and the remaining prisoners are left to fend for themselves as the Soviets approach. It was the winter season and with conditions rapidly deteriorating at the camp, many began to die from illness. When scene, however, easily depicts the main theme of survival from Levis...
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...way to avoid both the absolute faith of the pious who do not see any special problem in the Holocaust and those like Rubenstein who argue that the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn from Auschwitz is the "Death of God" and the ultimate absurdity of history.22 If the former alternative blasphemes against Hitler's victims, the latter blasphemes against the God of the victims. Both victims and God have to be held together in dialectical tension after Auschwitz; neither can be devalued without resulting distortion and loss of truth. To keep God and Israel together is the demand of Jewish theology; it is still an imperative after the Holocaust; the problem is how it is to be effected. If Rubenstein's solution of Jewish communal existence without the God of historic Judaism is no answer, what then is the answer? Fackenheim's reply is both subtle and difficult. He is adamant in his refusal to allow any theological explanation of the Holocaust. In no sense, he argues, can any particular theodicy be propounded in which God's goodness can be vindicated and Auschwitz seen as part of a rational cosmic pattern whose interpretation can be understood by man. In this sense the Holocaust is devoid of explanation and meaning. Thus, like Rubenstein, he totally rejects any account which interprets Auschwitz in terms of mi-penei hata'einu—"because of our sins." The various attempts to explain the...
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... Wiesel’s time in Auschwitz, the obstacles he has to surpass and the sacrifices he has to make in order to stay alive and how his faith waivers as his desperation to survive increases. As one of the millions of Jew-ish survivors of the Holocaust, Wiesel shares his personal story from his point of view bringing the themes of faith and desperation to surface. The desperation to survive changes Wiesel’s be-lief in God from one of unquestioning faith to a cynical more callous view. As the book unfolds these two themes present themselves and are tied to the storyline and Wiesel’s disposition and mental state. Throughout the book, Wiesel often talks about his faith and how...
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...Outline Introduction/Thesis: I. Holocaust at Auschwitz A. Concentration Camp 1. Life in camp 2. Countless murders 3. Rescue Conclusion/Closing: The Holocaust at Auschwitz By Writing 1 Introduction The story of the Holocaust at Auschwitz is a hard and very heart breaking story to tell. Millions Jews were murdered by the hands of the Nazis. The train arrived in the middle of the night, so we were greeted by very bright lights shining down on us. We were greeted by soldiers, SS men, as well as women. We were greeted by dogs and whips, by shouting and screaming, orders to try to empty the train, by confusion... There is no way to describe your first coming to Auschwitz. Hitler established the first concentration camp soon after he came to power in 1933. The system grew to include about 100 camps divided into two types concentration camps for slave labor in nearby factories and death camps for the systematic extermination of undesirables including Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally retarded and others. No words can really describe the scenes that took place at Auschwitz once a Jew entered the gates of a camp. The SS would beat the Jews with wipes, rebar, butts of their weapons anything the SS could get their hands on to beat them to death. Do to overcrowding these beatings...
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...The reason is the victims are systematically starved and not given the basic essentials to survive. Thus, when characters, for example, Henri from Levi’s passage would steal in most places outside of Auschwitz it would be considered wrong to steal and would be punished for doing so, however, in the camp people saw stealing as a necessity to survive. In contrast, in Borowski’s passage, about a kommando being able to live with the haunting guilt of their situation by trying to rationalize the situation. However, in some cases, in the passage mentions how several kommando out of guilt committed suicide. To lessen his guilt he would not mention to the new arrivals that they are being sent to the gas chambers. As well as, he asks his friend if they were bad people since he was furious with the arrivals and the ‘logical’ response was to rebel they will hate the new arrivals because they are seen as weaker. These kind of situations brings a new perspective showing how a person may behave in dire situations and raises the question if their actions were considering the situation morally wrong or not. This question would cause a debate because survival in death camps was tough so a simply yes or no answer is not fully address the living situation of the...
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...Some of the most crippling images of Auschwitz are the horrible scenes of the arrival of a transport of Jews to that concentration camp. To one side lay torture but a slight chance of survival. To the other side, lay instant death in the gas chambers. The frightening figure making this decision was, frequently, Josef Mengele, one of the doctors assigned to Auschwitz. It is now apparent that he must have started young and tortured animals when he was much younger in age. During WWII, the holocaust heavily impacted millions of lives, especially the people who were brutally experimented on by Dr. Joseph Mengele, who was not a simple human being. Many died and those who survived lived their painful lives with severe medical problems. The Angel of Death was created when he went to the University of Frankfurt to study medicine and then went to the army. Both of which were an extremely important part in his sadistic experiments hence the medical background and the love for “Nazism. After the war, Mengele was so scared of all the bad things he had done as well as his experiments that he fled Germany after they lost?? What Joseph Mengele did at Auschwitz, left his victims scarred both physically and mentally. Dr. Joseph Mengele was brought to this earth by Karl and Walburga Mengele in the Bavarian village of Gunzburg. He was the oldest of three children and was followed by his two younger brothers. From all accounts Karl Mengele was a harsh and distant man, one whose main concern...
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...Approximately six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during 1935-1945. Elie Wiesel describes how his life is like in the concentration camp called Auschwitz in the book Night by Elie Wiesel. Elie’s father increases his chance for survival during the holocaust because his father is all he has left. Elie Wiesel is a prisoner in the holocaust. For Elie, having his father with him increases his chance for survival. Elie was scared to lose his father when they got to the concentration camp called Auschwitz.”My hand tightened its grip on my father. All I could think of was not to lose him. Not to be alone”(Wiesel 30). Elie didn't want toolset his father because without him he will die. “The baton pointed to the left. I first wanted to see where they would send my father. Were he to have gone to the right, I would have run after him. The baton, once more moved to the left. A weight lifted from my heart”(Wiesel 32). Elie was worried that he was going to be separated from his father, too....
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...Auschwitz-Birkenau was one of forty thousand Nazi camps that held thousands of prisoners, to which only 144 of them managed to escape and live to tell of the forced labor and mass murder. The horrific conditions of the camps were terrifying for prisoners because of the guards’ inhumane punishments and overbearing security. The SS officers would shoot, starve, hang, and publicly humiliate prisoners for their own amusement (Vashem). The prisoners were deathly afraid of not following orders because the guards would enforce extremely strict rules without reason. For most, the fear was too paralyzing for them to attempt to escape, but for some, it was not great enough to overpower the prisoners’ determination and will for freedom. Most prisoners succumbed to the idea that death was inevitable and therefore remained in automaton every day that they were imprisoned, going through each day not...
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