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Alex is a German prisoner, a “professional delinquent” who is placed in charge of the Chemical Kommando at Auschwitz, though he himself is not a chemist nor particularly intelligent. Alex proves to be a coward, ruthless towards his Jewish underlings but fearful of any German or civilian who outranks him. Although Alex is made a Kapo over intelligent, well-educated Jews simply because he is German—and thus superior in the view of the Nazi ideology—he is clearly their subordinate, thereby contradicting that German notion of a racial hierarchy which dictates that any German person is naturally superior to any Jewish person, regardless of intelligence or ability. Regardless of how useless and ignorant Alex is, Levi refuses to base his view of Germans or even German prisoners on such a poor specimen as him, assuming that better examples must certainly exist somewhere.
Alex Quotes in Survival in Auschwitz
The Survival in Auschwitz quotes below are all either spoken by Alex or refer to Alex. 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:
).
Chapter 10. Chemical Examination Quotes
Without hatred and without sneering, Alex wipes his hand on my shoulder, both the palm and the back of the hand, to clean it; he would be amazed, the poor brute Alex, If someone told him that today, on the basis of this action, I judge him and Pannwitz and innumerable others like him, big and small, in Auschwitz and everywhere.
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Alex Character Timeline in Survival in Auschwitz
The timeline below shows where the character Alex appears in Survival in Auschwitz. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 10. Chemical Examination
...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;...
(full context)
...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...
(full context)
Chapter 11. The Canto of Ulysses
...teenager, the Kommando’s messenger-clerk, which is itself quite a powerful position among the prominents. Although Alex has kept his promise to be “violent and unreliable,” Jean has skillfully ingratiated himself to...
(full context)
Chapter 15. Die drei Leute vom Labor
One morning during roll call, Alex announces that Doktor Pannwitz has finally made his decision: three chemists will be transferred to...
(full context)
