Primo Levi The Last One Essay

Life in the concentration camps revolved around subverting to the system to the extent possible. Primo Levi uses symbolism to emphasize that the choices made by the men in the camp were not real choices, for they were made under duress. Levi states that “the Lager was pre-eminently a gigantic biological and social experiment” When a group of people are forced to live under conditions never seen in human history, they will make decisions beyond comprehensible. In Chapter 16 “The Last One”, Levi highlights the final destruction of the prisoners’ humanity. All prisoners in the camps were focused on simply surviving and living voraciously. However, when he who exploded the crematorium at Birkenau was executed, the prisoners came to their senses.
However, Primo Levi expresses this differentiation between humans as one group being superior and the other inferior. A chemical examination was placed as a way to improve one’s status in the camp if results are positive. While Primo Levi takes the chemical exam, Doctor Pannwitz supervises it and asks questions to Levi and other candidates. During the test, Levi expresses his views on Doktor Pannwitz’s stare: “…that look was not one between two men; and if I had known how completely to explain the nature of that look, which came as if across the glass window of an aquarium between two being who live in different worlds, I would also have explained the essence of the great insanity of the third Germany” (Chapter 10.32-33) By the persecution of a groups of humans by another, one group will have a more superior status than the other. Although both are human, Doktor Pannwitz was better-off than Levi. While Germans are privileged to a normal life with adequate food, clothes, and shelter, the prisoners in the concentration camps, persecuted by the Germans, are not treated as humans. In contrast to the Germans, prisoners did not even have a sufficient amount of these three necessities of life, yet both are