Survival in Auschwitz: Chapter 2. On the Bottom Summary & Analysis

After 20 minutes, the new arrivals are unloaded from the truck and deposited in a large, cold room, where they are left alone for what seems like hours. An SS officer arrives, and after finding a German-speaking Jewish person to translate for him, explains that the Jewish prisoners must arrange themselves in rows, strip naked and set their clothes bundled beside them on the floor. The officer seems dispassionate and calm. Prisoners with razors and shears enter, hastily shave each man completely bald, and leave, whereupon the naked arrivals are pushed into a large shower and left alone again for another long period. Levi acts reassuring towards his fellows, but he is secretly convinced they will soon all die.

A Hungarian prisoner enters the shower and speaks to them in poor Italian, explaining that they are in Monowitz, a section of Auschwitz, and will be placed in an Arbeitslager (work camp) that produces rubber with roughly ten thousand other prisoners. There are a variety of jobs—this man is a doctor, for instance—and everyone will be put to work. The Hungarian answers questions as well as he can, but many of his answers are nonsensical. He leaves, and hot water pours from the shower heads for “five minutes of bliss” before the Jews are herded out of the shower, naked and freezing, into another room, given a ragged set of clothes and wooden-soled shoes, and made to run 100 yards through the snow to yet another hut before they can dress themselves.

Stripped of all possessions, even their own hair, the newly-arrived Jews now feel like hollow men, “reduced to suffering and needs,” whose lives now only represent their utility to their German captors. Levi is tattooed with the number 174517 on his wrist, and he officially becomes a Häftling, a prisoner of the camp. The tattooed number becomes his identity and his way of receiving rations each day. In the first weeks, Levi catches himself habitually looking to the place his wristwatch should be, only to see the number instead.

Over time, Levi and some of the others realize that the numbers can tell one everything they need to know about another prisoner: when they entered the camps, which convoy they are in, what their nationality is. Those with low numbers are respected and feared, since they are the few Poles and Greeks who have survived for years through shrewdness and ferocity. Those with high numbers are newly arrived, considered to be fools.

After being tattooed, the new arrivals are driven into another hut full of bunks, but they are forbidden to touch them. When any requests are made for amenities, the prisoners are told, “You are not at home, this is not a sanatorium, the only exit is by way of the Chimney.” Still desperately thirsty, Levi reaches through the window and grabs an icicle, but a guard strikes him and throws it away. When Levi asks why he did this, the guard tells him, “There is no why here.” Levi realizes that this is the meaning of an extermination camp, to rid one of themselves. Together, they are all “lying on the bottom.”

As the day draws to a close, the arrivals are let out to see the workers return from their daily labor. Levi meets a young Polish boy of about 16 named Schlome, who explains to him in broken Italian that he has been in the camp for three years, working as an ironsmith. When Levi tells him that he is a trained chemist, Schlome tells him that is a good skill to have. The boy asks Levi where his mother is, and Levi tells him that she is safe, hiding in Italy. The youth embraces Levi, who recalls that he never forgets “his serious and gentle face of a child, which welcomed me on the threshold of the house of the dead.”

The arrivals quickly learn the much about the Lager. It is 600 square yards surrounded by electric barbed wire. There are 60 blocks (huts) which each house roughly 200 prisoners. The Häftling population is composed of criminals, political prisoners, and Jewish people, although everyone else has authority over the Jewish prisoners.

Every piece of wire or string the prisoners can find has practical value, and everything will be stolen at first opportunity. Each prisoner must always carry their possessions (their shirt, wooden shoes, soup bowl, and spoon) in hand, or sleep with them under their head. The camp is governed by many arbitrary rules—the set of one’s shirt, the number of buttons on their jacket, and so on—that must be observed, or one will be beaten.

Shoes are of primary importance, since “death begins with the shoes.” A man wearing broken or ill-fitting shoes invites foot sores or swelling, making it difficult to march and to work. This invites more beatings and punishment, and makes the SS see them as a burden on everyone else, a particularly dangerous scenario.

Each man works each day unless they are deemed ill, but one will only be deemed so if the overseers believe their working skills are essential enough to be worth preserving their life. Each man is assigned to work in a Kommando, usually comprised of 50 to 150 laborers, each governed by a Kapo. Unskilled Kommandos are usually led by prisoners, while skilled labor Kommandos most often have Polish or German civilian Kapos. Laborers work with the daylight, between eight and 12 hours per day, according to season.

Within a month, Levi is accustomed to the ways of the Lager, accustomed to chronic pain and hunger, and to thinking neither of the past nor the future, but only his immediate needs. Levi reflects, “Already my body is not my own.”  Theft is no longer a crime, but a necessity; to steal something is to possess it “by full right.” The Italians in the camp meet weekly for a time, but give it up since there are less and less of them each week. They all grow more “deformed and more squalid” as the time passes. Together, they agree “it was better not to think.”