Survival in Auschwitz

Survival in Auschwitz

One of the most tragic periods in world history was the period in the 1930s and 1940s when certain people decided to turn the world into a graveyard. When Adolf Hitler took power in Germany, he went about a plan to completely eradicate the Jewish people of Europe, a policy which likely would have become worldwide had he been able to win the war. In Primo Levi's autobiography Survival in Auschwitz, he describes what it was like for him trying to survive Nazi persecution of Jews in the middle of the Holocaust. Levi is an Italian man of the Jewish faith and his book was written in both the Italian and English languages, but many of the terms used throughout the text are German. Throughout, he uses the word Haftling in reference to himself and to other prisoners. There are many reasons why Levi made this choice as an author and the three that seem the most likely are that he subconsciously internalized some of the culture which dominated his life for such a long period, that he identifies himself with the other prisoners and therefore the term is unifying, or that he used the term in his book in defiance of the people who tried to kill him

When a person is captured, it is not uncommon for that person to absorb the perspective of their captors which may be why Levi uses the word Haftling. Throughout his ordeal, Levi and his fellow Jews were made to feel less than human. In the book, Levi defines this word by stating, "I have learnt that I am Haftling. My number is 174517; we have been baptized, we will carry the tattoo on our left arm until we die" (Levi 27). Just as he wears the tattoo forever, he also carries the stigma of the term Haftling forever. By referring to the Jews as Haftling, it helped the Nazis retain the idea that Jews were subhuman and wrong. To refer to them constantly as prisoners underlines that they have done something illegal or immoral and that the Nazis were justified in the way the Jews were punished.

The Nazis made it clear through their actions that there were two very different groups, themselves and the Jews. The Jewish people were thrown together in the concentration camps regardless of culture or language. Their only pertinent identification was their religion. Levi says in one part of the book, "A fifth Haftling stands at the door patiently and monotonously asking every civilian who enters loosening his belt: 'Etes-vous francais?'" (Levi 69). Nothing else is known about this man, if he is good or bad, kind or wicked. He is French which separates him from the Italian Levi, but at the same time he is a Haftling which makes them the same. With this being the case, it was common for prisoners in the camps to form strong relationships, particularly since they had been deprived of their loved ones. In using the word Haftling, Levi may be explaining how the Jews all became something of a single entity in their misery.

The final reason why Levi might have chosen to use the word Haftling throughout his book is because after all these years he is defiant of the people who captured and imprisoned him. After he is liberated along with the other people at Auschwitz, Levi says, "It really meant that the Lager was dead. It was the first human gesture that occurred among us. I believe that that moment can be dated as the beginning of the change by which we who had not died slowly changed from Haftling to men again" (160). Despite everything that the Nazis had put him through, Levi had survived. He uses the term as an act of rebellion; no matter what they called him, not matter what he did, Levi survived.