Null Achtzehn Character Analysis

Null Achtzehn is a young Jewish man who works briefly with Levi at Auschwitz until he drops a large piece of metal on Levi’s foot, seriously injuring him. Null Achtzehn has ceased to be a human being—unable to even think enough to know when he is about to collapse from exhaustion—and is referred to only by his tattooed number, even by his fellow Jewish people. Null Achtzehn thus represents the furthest extent to which a person can be dehumanized by the camp and by the Germans, and still remain alive, able to work but no longer to think. In a sense, Null Achtzehn is already dead, his mind having been destroyed by the Nazis.