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Chapter 2. On the Bottom
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Survival in Auschwitz, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Dehumanization and Resistance
Adaptability, Chance, and Survival
Moral Relativity
Racial Hierarchy
Oppression, Power, and Cruelty
Summary
Analysis
In his first few days, after being moved from hut to hut, Levi is assigned to a Kommando and to sleep in Block 30. His first night of sleep is fitful, and when the morning alarm sounds, each prisoner frantically makes his bed, dresses, and runs to receive his ration of bread, some even urinating on themselves as they travel to save time. Bread functions as the camp currency and an obsession, “the holy grey slab which seems gigantic in your neighbor’s hand, and in your own hand so small as to make you cry.”
As the only possession and the primary form of currency, bread symbolizes a prisoner’s wellbeing and status, as well as the degree to which they exercise their humanity. As will be seen, for a prisoner to have enough bread to sell means that they are not only comparatively wealthy and strong (since they can afford not to eat it), but also that they have learned to exist within the Lager by trading, scheming.
Themes
The latrine is filthy and within one week, Levi begins neglecting to wash himself, since one has to stand before a cold sink with his possessions clutched between his knees and scrub himself with filthy water and no soap. However, an older Jew, Steinlauf, chastises Levi for this, saying that they must hold onto ever scrap and remnant of humanity they can to resist the Lager and its campaign “to make us into beasts.” Levi considers this, though is not entirely convinced by Steinlauf’s system of ethics and resistance, and wonders himself whether it would be better to have no system in place at all.
Steinlauf’s point is insightful, even if Levi does not entirely grasp it. Since the Germans actively want to dehumanize the Jews and thus make reality conform to Nazi ideology, the most immediate and practical way to fight their gross ideology is to refuse to become beasts. This suggests that, although the Jewish prisoners are physically weak, they still have the power to combat Nazism by thwarting its aim of dehumanization.
Themes
