Analysis Of Primo Levi's 'This Way For The Gas, Ladies And Gentlemen'

Killing Them Slowly The Jewish Holocaust that took place in Germany before World War II, could not be compared to anything the world had ever seen before. Germans, who followed the radical Nazi regime, believed people of Jewish descent were biologically inferior. Under the rule of Adolf Hitler, Jews were taken from their homes and imprisoned in concentration camps. While at these camps, Jews faced unfounded brutality and hatred. Most people who went to the camps did not make it out alive; dying from disease, starvation, or execution. However, there were survivors. Tadeusz Borowski, a Ukrainian citizen of Polish descent, is one example of a survivor. In his fictional narrative titled, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, Borowski writes
This meant there were only the good guys and the bad guys, no middle zone. In his essay, Primo Levi, writes about a need for society to clarify the world around them and a demand for a winner and a loser. Society tends to isolate those around them into two categories; those who are with them and those who are against them. Levi argues that this typical paradigm is flipped in concentration camps. The new, harsh atmosphere and cruelty caused initial shock that would not wavier throughout their time in the camps. Borowski experiences this during his time at the camps. He uses his past memories to try and cope with everything that he is experiencing, even though he really had never seen anything like it before. There were no good or evil people in the camps, everyone was fighting to stay alive. Because survival was the most important thing, the prisoners were often just as violent and angry as the German officers. This caused the line between good and evil to disappear. The prisoners fought and killed each other for food and anything to help them survive. Social class, wealth, and inheritance had little meaning to the prisoners in the compounds. They were all afraid and did not know if they would live to see the next day. Levi writes in his essay, "they were saved by luck, and there is not much sense in trying to find something common to
Those who survived were considered lucky and praised, but the emotional and mental toll the camps took on them lived with them forever. The lucky few like, Borowski, fought every day to stay alive. Their physical health and intelligence kept them alive. Despite the odds, they survived the barbarous conditions and harsh treatments from the German soldiers, who were killing them