Concentration Camp Rhetorical Analysis

When people think of music, the first thing that comes to mind is probably not Nazi Concentration Camps. Most people think death, brutal, and inhumane when they think of concentration camps. Music does not seem like it would play a big part in a place where millions were brutally murdered day in and day out. This is why music in concentration camps is considered paradoxical; in other words contradicting. The music was paradoxical in concentration camps because music helped prisoners remember who they are and what they came from; music helped them survive when they thought the end was coming, and it helped them get out of doing harder jobs. Prisoners were beaten and brainwashed day in and day out. Therefore, often time they would forget who they really were and where they came from. Music helped with this. Since the prisoners were brutally worked they forgot their self worth, so “music helped inmates retain their identity and tradition”
Although, some may have gotten out of doing the aggressive and tiring jobs. Some prisoners while in the camp served as musicians. This saved them from doing brutal jobs and helped them survive. According to Elie Weisel, “We had left the tents for the Musicians’ block… (Hans) You’re lucky son. You've landed in a good unit”(Weisel 58). Some prisoners were lucky and were saved by being able to be musicians in the camps. Nazis wanted to constantly work the prisoners and wear them down. It had got to the point where “tens of thousands of prisoners were killed here” (Music and the Holocaust, Auschwitz). Being able to be in the musicians block sometime meant that they were not worked as hard or as brutal. This is paradoxical. The Nazis wanted to work the prisoners to death, but they gave them an escape route when it came to music. Music had given the prisoners a way to survive when all the Nazis wanted to do was kill them off; that is why it is