Dehumanization and Resistance Theme Analysis

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 self-awareness. Among his most keen observations, Levi’s account of Auschwitz demonstrates that, more than the day-to-day suffering, the Jewish prisoners’ greatest struggle is to remain human in the face of their captors’ constant efforts to dehumanize them.

Although the Levi and his fellow prisoners have narrowly avoided Auschwitz’s death camps—so that their captors can use them as slave labor—the Nazis take every opportunity to dehumanize them in an attempt to destroy their sense of identity and humanity. For instance, when Levi, who has not had anything to drink for several days, finds himself an icicle to drink from, a German guard immediately takes the icicle and throws it away. Levi asks why, since the icicle obviously did not belong to anybody, to which the guard replies, “There is no why here,” suggesting that the suffering of Jewish people and denial of basic needs is an end in itself. Levi realizes that “in this place everything is forbidden, not for hidden reasons, but because the camp has been created for that purpose.” The Jewish prisoners are given numbered tattoos, which come to replace their names except among close friends and describe the only information that is relevant to their life in the camps: their nationality and the period when they arrived at Auschwitz. In his first few weeks, Levi instinctively looks to his wrist to check the time on his watch—confiscated when he entered the camp—which he sees as a mark of a civilized man. However, in its place he only finds his tattooed number, a reminder that he is only one meaningless cog in a “great machine [meant] to reduce us to beasts.” Levi observes that the hellish treatment and hard labor even eliminates many of the prisoners’ basic survival instincts. He watches as a young man literally works himself to death, his body failing; “He has not even the rudimentary astuteness of a draught-horse, which stops pulling a little before it reaches exhaustion.” The young man’s inability to even recognize that he needs rest suggests that the Nazis have successfully stripped him of his basic humanity, making him less astute than even a beast of labor.

Since the Jewish prisoners are largely powerless to resist or fight their physical captivity, resisting their own dehumanization becomes a chief form of opposition to the Nazi’s cruelty and ideology. When Levi, like many others, starts to neglect his own personal hygiene, reasoning that washing his face with filthy water in a filthy camp is pointless, he is severely chastised by an older prisoner named Steinlauf. Steinlauf argues that precisely because the Nazis want to dehumanize them, they must resist and “save at least the skeleton, the scaffolding, the form of civilization,” which can be done most practically by washing one’s face and shirt each day and shining one’s shoes, regardless of the fact that they will soon be dirty again. This suggests that, faced with a dehumanizing environment, holding onto whatever symbols and rituals of the civilized world one can is vital to maintaining one’s own humanity. Although they are slaves, powerless and subject to every cruel whim of the Nazis, they still have the power to “refuse [their] consent,” to resist the dehumanization thrust upon them and so confound their captors’ aims. Thus, the daily rituals to remember one’s own humanity not only save oneself, but also thwart the goals and ideology of their oppressors, giving a small amount of fighting power to otherwise powerless prisoners.

As liberation draws nearer, the survivors of Auschwitz slowly regain their sense of humanity, proving that the Nazis failed in their attempt to completely eradicate Jewish presence, identity, and dignity. After Levi is transferred from working as a hard laborer in the snow to working as chemist in a laboratory, the act of working indoors with fine tools, using his mind rather than his body, and working around young German women slowly returns his sense of civilization and humanity. However, with this return brings painful shame at realizing how “repugnant” and pitiable he appears, and how brutishly he has lived all these months as a prisoner. This demonstrates that Levi has not been sufficiently dehumanized by the Nazis to forget who he is, though the process of becoming human again is painful. When the Germans and the healthy prisoners leave the camp, fleeing the approaching Russian army, Levi is left behind with the ill prisoners to fend for themselves. In the absence of their German oppressors Levi and his fellows begin caring not only for themselves, but for others by gathering and sharing food, an action that was unthinkable while they were surviving under Nazi oppression. Levi calls this “the first human gesture that occurred among us,” saying that it “really meant the Lager was dead.” Despite the Nazis’ aim of so brutalizing the Jewish prisoners that they lose all sense of humanity (an existential death, rather than a physical one), the prisoners’ acts of altruism prove that they failed in their quest.

Although many died in Auschwitz, Levi’s account proves that, despite the Germans’ attempts to dehumanize them and wipe out their sense of identity, the Jewish prisoners ultimately manage to resist and hold onto their humanity. In light of their environment and the Nazi ideology, this endurance and maintenance of their humanity represents its own form of resistance.