Survival in Auschwitz Themes

During World War II, Primo Levi, an Italian Jewish man, narrowly escapes death in a crematorium when he is assigned to be a laborer in the hellish Lager (camp) of Auschwitz in Poland, where he survives for more than a year. His astute recollection of that experience provides a wealth of insight into the Holocaust, one of modern history’s greatest evils, examining the suffering and survival of such horror with a surprising level of…

In Auschwitz, the margin between survival and death is extremely thin. The author, Levi, only manages to survive through a combination of shrewd thinking and good fortune. This precarious mix of chance and skill suggests that one’s meager chances of survival are dictated largely by their ability to be resourceful and adapt to the new hellish environment they find themselves in, although even the most resourceful individual can be struck down by poor luck.

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The Holocaust was motivated, among other things, by the belief that ethnic Germans were a master race, destined to wipe out all inferior races and create a superior breed of human beings. Although the Third Reich and its crusade to wipe out the Jewish people is founded on the belief of a racial hierarchy, Levi, the author and a prisoner at Auschwitz labor camp, observes the various ethnic groups within the camp and comes…

As many thinkers have observed, power has the tendency to corrupt any individual, but Levi, the author and a former prisoner at Auschwitz labor camp, notes that this seems even more true when that individual has known what it is like to be powerless. At Auschwitz, some Jewish prisoners are promoted to the status of Kapos, who have authority over the other prisoners and receive special privileges. In his account, the relationships between…