Survival in Auschwitz

by

Primo Levi

Bread Symbol Icon

As the only possession technically allowed to the prisoners, bread represents a prisoner’s wealth, value, and wellbeing. In the illicit exchange market, bread functions as the base unit of value, measured in single rations. Thus, a prisoner who is a skilled organizer or investor will have a surplus of bread, while a prisoner who is not will only possess his single ration for as long as he can resist the temptation to eat it. Although it is a unit of wealth, bread is also the prisoner’s primary mode of sustenance, the only substantive food the prisoners are ever fed, along with a watery bowl of soup. The rations of bread are never enough to sate one’s hunger, meaning that if a prisoner is not enterprising enough to gather additional bread and thus wealth, they must choose between buying clothing or tools with their bread to better resist the cold, or eating it and briefly forgetting their hunger. Thus, the amount of bread that a prisoner possesses directly reflects his own wealth, and thus his wellbeing, since a surplus of such wealth automatically means a surplus of food as well, keeping one further from starvation than their comrades. When, at the end of the story, the surviving prisoners of the infection ward elect to reward Levi, Arthur, and Charles’s foraging with portions of their own ration of bread, their act of budding humanity is made even more poignant by the fact that they are not only offering something of value, but risking their own wellbeing to show their appreciation.

Bread Quotes in Survival in Auschwitz

The Survival in Auschwitz quotes below all refer to the symbol of Bread. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Dehumanization and Resistance Theme Icon
).
Chapter 5. Our Nights Quotes

A day begins like every day, so long as not to allow us reasonably to conceive its end, so much cold, so much hunger, so much exhaustion separates us from it: so that it is better to concentrate one’s attention on the block of grey bread, which is small but will certainly be ours in an hour, and which for five minutes, until we have devoured it, will form everything that the law of the place allows us to possess.

Related Characters: Primo Levi (speaker)
Related Symbols: Bread
Page Number: 63
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8. This Side of Good and Evil Quotes

We now invite the reader to contemplate the possible meaning in the Lager of the words “good” and “evil”, “just” and “unjust”; let everybody judge […] how much of our ordinary moral world could survive on this side of the barbed wire.

Related Characters: Primo Levi (speaker)
Related Symbols: Bread
Page Number: 86
Explanation and Analysis:
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Bread Symbol Timeline in Survival in Auschwitz

The timeline below shows where the symbol Bread appears in Survival in Auschwitz. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3. Initiation
Dehumanization and Resistance Theme Icon
Adaptability, Chance, and Survival Theme Icon
Racial Hierarchy Theme Icon
...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... (full context)
Chapter 8. This Side of Good and Evil
Dehumanization and Resistance Theme Icon
Adaptability, Chance, and Survival Theme Icon
Racial Hierarchy Theme Icon
...thrives, functioning like any other economy except that it deals in such goods as soup, bread, tobacco, and shoes, each valued at fluctuating exchange rates based upon a ration of bread.... (full context)
Adaptability, Chance, and Survival Theme Icon
Moral Relativity Theme Icon
...various—often complex—investment schemes, even trading with Polish civilians, investing camp-issued tobacco for a return of bread, eating a portion and then reinvesting their remainder to purchase a shirt which can then... (full context)
Chapter 9. The Drowned and the Saved
Dehumanization and Resistance Theme Icon
Adaptability, Chance, and Survival Theme Icon
Moral Relativity Theme Icon
Oppression, Power, and Cruelty Theme Icon
...is an underling, L. has the self-control to live on only a portion of his bread ration, using the rest to buy soap with which to clean his face and razors... (full context)
Chapter 13. October 1944
Dehumanization and Resistance Theme Icon
Adaptability, Chance, and Survival Theme Icon
Racial Hierarchy Theme Icon
...it is unavoidable. The onset of winter means many things. They will eat less, since bread must be used to buy gloves. They will sleep less, since night hours will be... (full context)
Dehumanization and Resistance Theme Icon
Adaptability, Chance, and Survival Theme Icon
...the Poles, since they always hear new information first. For those without connections or the bread capital to quickly organize one, there is little to be done to prepare for selection... (full context)
Chapter 17. The Story of Ten Days
Dehumanization and Resistance Theme Icon
Adaptability, Chance, and Survival Theme Icon
...collection of tools to make cigarette lighters, which he can sell for several rations of bread each. Two pleasant Frenchmen, Arthur and Charles, are also in the ward, having only arrived... (full context)
Dehumanization and Resistance Theme Icon
Adaptability, Chance, and Survival Theme Icon
Moral Relativity Theme Icon
Oppression, Power, and Cruelty Theme Icon
...the agreed-upon proposal that each man who did not forage should give a slice of bread to the three who did the work. To Levi, this marks a new beginning, a... (full context)