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
Three months into Levi’s internment, the Chemical Kommando is formed. Fifteen Häftlinge, including Levi and Alberto, are assigned to it. Although it was assumed that the Kommando would be a skilled trade unit, and that the Kapo should naturally be a chemist, it is instead a German “professional delinquent,” a small buffoon named Alex who announces that he will not let such Jewish “intellectuals” get the best of him; he promises to be ruthless. However, he also announces that each man will be tested by camp officials as a chemist—those who fail will be thrown out, but those who pass will be made specialists. While the others in the unit are disheartened, Levi (who is not ruthless enough to be an effective organizer or survive through cunning) sees this as his first real chance at survival.
Alex’s assignment as the head of a group of Jewish “intellectuals” exemplifies the Nazis’ racial hierarchy. Although Alex is clearly an idiot, the German belief that any German person is naturally superior to any Jewish person dictates that in their view, Alex is fit to lead a group of men clearly more intelligent and capable than himself. Alex’s foolishness, then, not only provides an example of the supposed racial hierarchy, but also provides its own counter-argument. Although Alex is a German, he is clearly an inferior man—less intelligent and of lesser character than his Jewish underlings.
Themes
Of the 15 underlings, three disappear, five more admit that they are not chemists, but the remaining seven are tested by a German professional three days later. When Levi stands before the German administrator, Doktor Pannwitz, he feels as if the man is watching him through aquarium glass like a specimen, rather than as a human being. Levi imagines that if he could ever know what was happening in his tester’s mind at that moment, he would finally understand “the great insanity of the third Germany.”
This is the most salient depiction of the Germans’ dehumanization of the Jewish prisoners, suggesting that is present in even a German individual’s perception of another person. Although Doktor Pannwitz, who himself seems to be a chemist, is speaking about technical matters to another chemist and clearly recognizes Levi’s skill, he still cannot bring himself to look at Levi as a human being.
Themes
The examination commences and Levi is pleased to feel his mind, so long neglected, springing back to life, recalling data and information he learned from studying chemistry in university. Pannwitz speaks German in a manner that is difficult to understand, but Levi keeps up, his stature improving as they converse. When Pannwitz shows him several texts that Levi studied in college, the consistency between his past life and this one strikes him as strange. The test concludes. Levi feels it has gone well but knows that optimism is a foolish thing to possess in the Lager. As he returns across the camp with Alex, Alex disinterestedly wipes a greasy hand on Levi’s shirt to clean it. Levi reflects that on that simple action, he has formed his judgment of Alex, Doktor Pannwitz, and so many others in the camp.
For Levi, who has spent the past three months learning not to think and allowing himself to become less and less of a human being, this moment represents a critical turn. For the first time since his arrest in Italy, Levi’s intellect and technical capacity are being recognized and he is using his mental faculties in an acutely human way. It is ironic that this show of humanness is happening before a German camp administrator, who fails to see him as human at all, but for Levi’s character and internal struggle to maintain and protect his humanity, it is still a significant moment. However, it is contradicted by Alex’s casual use of Levi’s shirt as a washrag, which is itself a dehumanizing treatment.
Themes
