How Did Primo Levi Survive In Auschwitz

Survival in Auschwitz is an account of a Jewish man’s experience in a Nazi death camp. Primo Levi, the author and main character, wrote the book as part of his therapy for the trauma he experienced from being in Auschwitz. The memoir begins with Levi describing his living in the mountains as part of a group that hoped to join the resistance movement preceding his capture by the Nazis and imprisonment in a detention camp. Following this he and the other Jewish people in the camp are brought to Auschwitz, where they remain for around a year of cruelty if they do not die before then. Only four make it to the end. Throughout Levi’s stay in Auschwitz he discovers the way the society functions and he adapts to survive amidst others who also only …show more content…
One significant way the prisoners are objectified is through their tattoos: numerical tattoos are branded on to each prisoner’s arm when they enter the camp, signifying where they came from and when they were brought in. The use of numbers is intended to replace the prisoner’s given names. After he is tattooed, Levi says “My number is 174517; we have been baptized, we will carry the tattoo on our left arm until we die.”, but even more he says “I have learnt that I am Häftling.” (27). He knows that for the Germans the set of numbers take away the personal part of treating humans so cruelly. Machines have numbers, people have …show more content…
The machinery is treated with more care than they are, quickly disassembled and hidden away while the prisoners are left in their huts where they may or may not be severely injured. The objectification does not just happen with those deliberate, well thought out actions such as that, but also with smaller, random things. An example is the day Primo Levi and other prisoners have their chemistry examination. They are crossing a cluttered space within Auschwitz, reentering the Bude section of the camp, and after Alex, the Kapo of the Chemical Kommando, grabs a greasy cable while maneuvering himself, he “wipes his hand on [Primo’s] shoulder, both the palm and the back of the hand, to clean it” (107-108). Alex himself is a prisoner, but a “Green Triangle” and not Jewish. The extension of the dehumanization of the Jewish prisoners extends so far that the Kapo’s action is not accompanied by any hateful insult, but is instead automatic and quickly done with, because it is normal to wipe your hands off on a dirty rag or cheap piece of furniture. And Levi accepts it, though he resents it, and does nothing but continue