Charles is a Frenchman whom Levi meets in the infection ward in the 10 days between the Germans’ evacuation of Auschwitz and the Russians’ arrival. Charles is the healthiest and strongest in the hut, and plays a critical role in helping Levi to forage for food and supplies and survive. More importantly, Levi and Charles strike up a strong friendship, and Levi remarks that speaking with Charles helps him to feel more human again. Charles survives the war and returns home, and he and Levi maintain a long correspondence via letters.
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Charles Character Timeline in Survival in Auschwitz
The timeline below shows where the character Charles appears in Survival in Auschwitz. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 17. The Story of Ten Days
...which he can sell for several rations of bread each. Two pleasant Frenchmen, Arthur and Charles, are also in the ward, having only arrived in the camp days before. When a...
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...to the style of dated diary entries. January 19: Levi wakes up with Arthur and Charles at dawn, feeling ill and weary and frightened. All the other prisoners in their hut...
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One of the prisoners who remained inside while Levi, Charles, and Arthur foraged, makes the agreed-upon proposal that each man who did not forage should...
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...potatoes per person for breakfast. Having remembered a trench were vegetables were buried, Levi and Charles spend their day chipping turnips out of the frozen ground with a pickaxe, as well...
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January 21: Although Levi is exhausted, Charles calls him to work again in the morning. As Arthur sets whichever men of the...
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After Charles and Levi find a suitable place and the needed equipment to cook soup, a group...
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January 22: The next morning, Levi and Charles boldly venture into one of the SS camp quarters, finding a wealth of vodka, medicine,...
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...hut falls out of bed and soils himself, filling the hut with a foul stench. Charles rises, dresses himself, and then cleans the young man with straw, scrapes the floor clean...
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...group of prisoners manage to clear an opening, stamping down the barbed wire fence, and Charles and Levi are able to pass through unharmed. As they do, Levi realizes that he...
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...arrive any moment now. Although they are still weak and Sómogyi’s chattering is incessant, Arthur, Charles, and Levi spend their evening speaking excitedly on all manner of subjects around the stove,...
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January 27: Although Arthur, Charles, and Levi keep each other feeling sane and human, around them the dying survivors are...
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...want to touch him before they eat for fear of his contagion. After breakfast, while Charles and Levi are carrying Sómogyi’s body out to the yard, the Russians arrive to free...
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