Survival in Auschwitz

Before World War II , Germany was in a state of depression. The German people wanted to overcome this time of hopelessness, so when Adolf Hitler presented his ideas and promised to overcome this depression, the people of Germany followed and obeyed his words. In this sense of a fascist government, there was no such thing as a class system. Hitler stated that there was one race of people that was ideal. He called this the Arian race and it consisted of blonde haired blue eyed people. To him, every person that did not fit these strict requirements was inferior to this Arian race. In Hitler’s opinion, people of Jewish decent were one race. He did not see them as a cultural group of many different individuals, but as one minority. Hitler blamed the depression on the Jews and looked to extermination of the race as the best possible solution to help his country overcome this time of despair. He called them greedy, lazy, and by calling them aggressive animals he dehumanized every Jew. In Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz , the prisoners of the Nazi work camp in Auschwitz are killed in spirit long before their real death due to the dehumanization and the working conditions they are forced to become accustomed to.

When the Jewish people arrived at the concentration camps, they were immediately degraded. They were stripped of their identity. The one thing that was taken away from them was what also made them an individual. The prisoners were told that their name wouldn’t matter anymore, only the number that they were given. Similarly, “He is Null Achtzehn. He is not called anything except that, Zero Eighteen, the last three figures of his entry number; as if everyone was aware that only a man is worthy of a name, and that Null Achtzehn is no longer a man”(Levi 42). The prisoners were forced to go by their numbers only; some forgot even their own names. They were deemed not worthy of having a name but were seen as inferior based on their religion and beliefs. They were, “killed in [our] spirit long before our anonymous death” (55). They were separated from their families, all forced to wear the same uniform, all forced to work, told not to talk, and even told not to think. This dehumanization causes the prisoners to lose all signs of hope and the degradation that they have been told over and over forces them to refer to themselves simply as animals. The sign gives the only purpose for a prisoners existence in the camp, “ Arbeit Macht Frei , work gives freedom” (22). The prisoners are told that if they work hard they will continue to live. The dehumanization severely degrades a prisoner but also the working conditions affect the attitudes of the captives.