The Tales From A Grotesque Land Analysis

The memoir , “Auschwitz: The Tales from a Grotesque Land,” by Sara Nomberg-Przytyk describes the life inside of Auschwitz from the perspective of Nomberg. It fixates on the feelings and experiences that she had while she was there, and each chapter describes a certain person she met throughout her time spent at the camp. All of the characters she describes intertwine within one or more of the stories in her memoir. This piece gives a real personal side to the story to attach with the facts behind the history of Auschwitz, which then helps fulfill the bigger picture of the events that occurred within the camp itself.
From the stories it can be determined how the camps were set up and run, at least from the sections that Nomberg described. Overall, the Nazi’s had full control over the camps and the everyday activities that the prisoners were apart of. Although, they assigned German prisoners to be in charge of the bunkers, called a kapo, which meant watching over the prisoners and making sure everything and everyone was run properly. This was a mechanism in order for the wrath of the prisoners to be taken out on their peers, such as the kapo, instead of the SS guards. Also, right at the beginning of an exchange from camps the doctors had the ultimate say of who died right when they got off the train and who survived to work in the camp. This was established in order to control the maximum capacity of the camp and also to create a …show more content…
Even though the guards and the prisoners were in completely different circumstances they still had similarities to their experiences in the camp. They both needed to learn how to cope with the issues at hand, learn how to survive, and somehow try to keep ahold of their moral standards. Without those specific adaptations to their environment no one was safe, and there was no guarantee that anyone could walk out of there