Going through something like this was tough on them, especially with families like Eliezer and his own. Just being in an enclosed area for long time made them go mad and lose hope. In the first camp all of them lost faith in God and in themselves, because they witnessed people and even babies getting murdered on the spot. They killed each other over food, because they lost humanity. The german soldiers had them locked up like dogs, and that’s why they lost everything that made them who they are. Even though their attitudes and personalities changed, some of the Jewish refugees kept pushing on when they were weak. The old and the weak knew there was no hope for them, they were the one’s that did give up easily. That is why the Jews and non-jewish people, who were put in the concentration camp lost their personality and their behavior had changed over the time being locked in a small confined area for months or…
When the author describes the dinner scene I realized early into the story that the people operating the camp want to strip the prisoners of all hope, they worked to such an extent that even the food reached a new low level. The reader learns that Filip crawled out of bed with his bunk buddy and tried to get more tea. As a result, he and his friend were caught. This chapter makes me think about myself and what I would do if I was in Auschwitz, I would probably have died on the first day, this would not have been so bad if I think about it. Being with guards who beat prisoners for no reason and having to deal with a place that has no rules would be a disaster. In this first chapter I felt that everything that happened to the prisoners was wrong. (Questions: 1. I thought that Vacek was dead? 2. Is Vacek a title or a real person?…
It seems blunt and depressing on the surface, with its nonchalant manner of describing horrific events within the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. But underneath, Borowski could have been communicating a message about human nature itself. Several unique individuals in the camp impacted the narrator’s outlook on the world, and challenged the generalizing of all untermensch as harmful to society, a mentality which was promoted by Nazi Germany. This conveys to the reader the idea that their differences are what makes humans…
In his novel Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl discusses his experience of being imprisoned in multiple concentration camps during the Second World War. Due to Frankl’s profession as a psychiatrist he gained insights on the camp life and human psychology that other people might not have been able to gain. This gives his account of his time in a Nazi concentration camp a specific perspective that is seldomly found in other reports. One of the major things Frankl focuses on in his novel is how the prisoner survived inside the camps. While Frankl’s standpoint was that a person needed a meaning in life in order to survive, he also describes different aspects of camp live and the human mind that allowed people to cope with and survive the horrors of the concentration camps. These different aspect where both factors within a person, as well as outside factors, and included the different mechanism the human mind started using to cope…
Man’s Search for Meaning is written by Victor Frankl, an Auschwitz Holocaust survivor. The book is divided into two sections that consist of an autobiography and a logo-therapy section. During the autobiography section Mr. Frankl takes the reader through his time at the Auschwitz camp and gives his perspective of what happened as a camp prisoner and a psychiatrist. Viktor Frankl discusses concepts of suffering, humanity, spirituality, choices, social factors, and meaning to life. Frankl thoroughly examines these concepts through the eyes of someone who lived through one of the worst concentration work camps and then explains how these concepts merge with his own theory of counseling, logo-therapy. Logo-therapy is based on a foundation of Existentialism,…
I had known for a long time the sort of horrors and torturous things went on at these camps, but what this book does teach is the horrors and tortures of one. The book tells of the emotions and experiences through the eyes of one who has actually experienced those terrible times.…
The inmates were called “pigs” and this made them feel as if they were living a “life of a number” (43 & 73). The “life of a number” was referring to the numbers tattooed on them. The reason they had tattooed numbers was so that the guards could keep a record of who's who but the inmates were never referred to by name, only by number. From the inmates point of view, the reader should understand that “it [wasn’t] the physical pain which hurt the most…; it [was] the mental agony caused by injustice, the unreasonableness of it all” (42). The use of Frankl’s degrading diction is to display the corrupt atmosphere the inmates felt around them during their life in the concentration camp. Every so often, the degrading word choice, transitions into the use of sarcasm. Frankl uses sarcasm in the description of life in the concentration camps is to allow the reader to understand the irony of what some things were like there. For example, when the inmates were on their “last days” they were allowed to ‘“enjoy”’the days by smoking a cigarette (26). For an inmate they had no…
Emanuel Jal not only tells his stor, but he makes his audience feel as if they are there in the villages with him. Jal gives a brief peek into his story at the beginning of the book. He used this to catch the readers attention and make them want to know every detail of what he went through. Jal says, “In the peaceful village we once knew, rockets blow apart houses with families inside, women are raped, and children are murdered.”(2). Jal’s description of what the war is causing around him pull the reader to read more. As this passage is read the mind begins to imagine everything listed. The mind feels the heat of the explosion, sees shame filled eyes of rape victims, and smells the dead bodies of hundreds. This passage shows a time lapse from…
“Night” by Eliezer Wiesel is a powerful novel, yet it received backlash for not going into detail about the Jew’s horrific experiences while at concentration camps. Critics say that the material could have been even more graphic than it already was in order to display the true horrors the Jews experienced. Because he chose to relay his experiences in an understated manner, Wiesel is actually showing his readers just how gut wrenching that event really was.…
In Auschwitz, more people died than all of the British and American losses combined. This novel is about one survivor's story and how he made it through all of the challenges at Auschwitz. Elie gives a detailed account of events that truly show the horror and gore of the camps. In the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the main character, Elie, is affected by the events in the book because he loses his faith, becomes immune to death, and his point of view of his father changes.…
Frankl believed that most of the people who survived the concentration camps were able to find a purpose in life to make themselves feel…
When you read, do you ever felt like there is a recording playing in your head, telling the story to you? Have you ever noticed that each writer has a “voice” that is completely their own? Why do all of the great authors have a “sound” exclusive to themselves? Using precise wording and distinctive phrases, writers can manipulate your thoughts and emotions to help the reader understand the content of the literature. This is especially helpful when the subject matter is uncomfortable and harsh, such as the lives of inmates in the Nazi concentration and death camps during World War II. Relating to this book, Wiesel was imprisoned in Buchenwald and Auschwitz for being a Jew, and in particular uses his style to tell the tale of those two camps’…
The very existence of the inmates was not important to the Germans; their lives could blow out like a flame and the Germans would not care. Everyone was appalled at what secrets were kept in these camps, but they were most fearful of whether or not their own lives would be lost in the…
Living under prison is emotional, however, how would it feel if you were living in hidden for years, constantly afraid of what is to come next, and what would occur if you were discovered by the Nazi Party. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Franks is a firsthand account of living under constant fear of being discovered and sent to prison. Anne Frank describes the conditions she and the other family were living in on a daily basis until the time where she was discovered and subsequently sent to different concentrations camps. What could have driven the German people to accept a radical ideology that resulted in people to run away and live in hiding for most of their life? In one of the…
The desire for power, fear, and self-preservation can cause people to change in ways one could not imagine. In the story, Night by Elie Wiesel, and Gerda Weissman Klein’s All But My Life, the authors share their tragic experiences from their times in Nazi concentration camps. In Addition, Klein’s All But My Life shows her experience in many different concentration camps for three years and how differently female inmates were treated than male. In Wiesel’s Night, he discusses his experience of being sent to Auschwitz along with his father for a year and how the tragedies he endured transformed his character. In Addition, Klein’s All But My Life shows her experience in many different concentration camps for three years and how differently female…