The idea that the Holocaust belongs to, as White puts it, a "special class of events," is a compelling one (37). Any discursive historical representation has an "inexpungeable relativity," just as any historiography will (White 37). Narratives are certainly one of the many efforts to "lay claim to what and how a nation remembers," which is why it is important to place the object within its social, cultural, and historical context (Hansen127). Added to the problem of representations is the equally as difficult problem of the "real" archival elements: the photos and film objects and the primary sources that are used to piece together historiographies and narratives alike. Wiesel has been quoted as saying that documentaries cannot do the Holocaust justice paradoxically because they show too much. In showing, it denigrates the experience, of "what can never be imagined," that domain of consciousness that only art, music, poetry, and other…...

This makes his agument less-than-convincing and too vague and philosophical in tone. Even many of his citations meely note authos, athe than actual page numbes. He efeences the authos' geneal ideas, athe than specific evidence they pesent. And some of the souces ae in Geman, which make it difficult to tace his souces o even ead the titles of many of the aticles used in witing his piece.
The most data-diven aspects of Fei's aticle come at the end, when he examines the diffeences between how guilty Stasi membes wee teated afte the unification with Gemany, vesus how Nazis wee teated at the end of the wa. Thee was widespead condemnation of the Stasi, notes Fei, and the govenment was upfont and honest in allowing citizens to seach the available ecods. But using this libealism as evidence of a changed attitude towads Geman histoical cimes seems like an ovely boad…...

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references the authors' general ideas, rather than specific evidence they present. And some of the sources are in German, which make it difficult to trace his sources or even read the titles of many of the articles used in writing his piece.

The most data-driven aspects of Frei's article come at the end, when he examines the differences between how guilty Stasi members were treated after the unification with Germany, versus how Nazis were treated at the end of the war. There was widespread condemnation of the Stasi, notes Frei, and the government was upfront and honest in allowing citizens to search the available records. But using this liberalism as evidence of a changed attitude towards German historical crimes seems like an overly broad logical leap

The bulk of Frei's evidence comes at the end of the article, in which he discusses various 21st century German government initiatives to engage in reevaluation of the past, and the recent efforts to study the Holocaust and its meaning and to memorialize it in tangible and intangible ways. But his three-generation theory of Holocaust intellectual history, while intriguing, is not substantiated with enough empirical evidence. Frei's broad thesis seems better-suited to a book rather than a relatively short article in an academic journal.

Reference

Frei, Norbert. (2010, September). 1945-1949-1989: dealing with two German pasts.

Auschwitz
Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz

Primo Levi

Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz

Reading Primo Levi's book Survival in Auschwitz is an experience which raises a host of important existential questions. These questions refer to the meaning of life and human nature and more specifically to the question of evil that exists in the human heart. This book also explores the other side of human nature and the extreme endurance and strength that lives within the human heart.

Survival in Auschwitz provides insight into the life of Levi during his period in the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Second World War. The narrative begins with his arrest as an Italian Jew in 1944 and his deportation. The book ends with the liberation of the camp in 1945. The horrors of his experience begins when Levi, with 650 other Jews, is loaded on as freight train and has to undergo a four-day journey to the camp…...

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On another level what this book does is to bring the reader face-to-face with the reality of human evil. Through the detailed and intense descriptions that the author provides of environment in which he lived during the years in Auschwitz, we gain a unique insight into the tangible face and reality of evil. In the process of reading the book we are forced to face a number of very difficult and uncomfortable questions. This refers largely to the question of human nature and the evil that resides within the human heart. Is this an intrinsic part of human nature or does evil only emerge as a result of certain severe and unusual circumstances? The answer to this question is complex and is not given unequivocally in the book. What is implied however is that evil is a part of human being but that good is also present and can manifest itself in response to evil actions. One interpretation of the book is that both evil and goodness reside within the human being.

This dualism or dichotomy between human good and evil is central to the meaning of the personal narrative, although the nature of evil often overwhelms the good, leading to complete dehumanization. Despite this, in the cruel and unforgiving environment of Auschwitz Levi does refer to rare incidents of kindness and compassion.

When Levi first enters the camp he meets a Polish Jew Named Schlome. Levi is confused and terrified and in the midst of these horrors and he converses with Scholme, who instinctively understands his feelings and terror. Scholme then comes towards Levi and embraces him in a show of deep understanding and compassion for his situation even though he is in the same situation (Levi, 1958, p. 31). This is a gesture of understanding and common human

Survival in Auschwitz, Primo Levi's most important observation was that staying alive depended not only on skill and cunning but also a large measure of good luck. In his case, one example of good fortune was being born in Italy, where the Jews were not deported until after the German occupation in 1943. hatever the faults of the fascist Mussolini regime -- and they were many -- it refused to cooperate with the deportation of the Jews from any of its territory even though it deprived them of many basic civil rights. Had Levi lived in Germany, Holland, occupied Poland or the Baltic States his chances of survival would have been far lower. He was also fortunate in having a basic knowledge of chemistry that the Germans found useful, since the I.G. Farben Company controlled Auschwitz III (Monowitz) and required chemists and technicians for its laboratories. This allowed him access…...

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WORKS CITED

Levi, Promo. Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault n Humanity. Touchstone, 1996.

Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi. Discussing their daily activities in the concentration camps, their physical and psychological problems that they encountered, how the people behaved, and our own personal reflections on the situation.
Survival in Auschwitz

Auschwitz, Poland is a concentration camp built 150 miles outside Warsaw in May 1940. The commander is Rudolf Hoss and is staffed by SS Death's Head units. Primo Levi, a 24-year-old man who has been a prisoner here since early 1944. He studied chemistry at the University of Turin and graduated in 1941. He moved to northern Italy to join the resistance against Benito Mussolini but was captured in December 1943 and sent to Auschwitz.

He tells us it was a four-day train trip in crammed boxcars with nothing to eat or drink, midnight arrival, the first of many summary interrogations that led to either a slavish existence or swift death. Clothes taken, hair shaved,…...

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. hen 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…...

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Works Cited

Levi, Primo, S.J. Woolf, and Philip Roth. Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity.

New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. Print.

Auschwitz gave to Promo Levi when he dared to ask the "hy?" question. To be sure, the guard was simply attempting to be cynical and sarcastic rather than reflective or philosophical, but LaCapra is also critical of Claude Lanzmann for failing to ask this question enough in Shoah. All of the Germans who Lanzmann interviewed were either perpetrators of complicit bystanders, and they spent a great deal of time explaining what, where and how the Holocaust happened, while also denying or minimizing their own responsibility. Franz Suchomel, the S.S. guard at Treblinka, was a notable exception to this rule, but Lanzmann interviewed him with a hidden camera after promising to keep his identity anonymous. Almost all of the Jewish survivors described what happened in painful detail, and Lanzmann's preference was to make them literally relive their experiences, but they were not asked why. ith a few exceptions the resistance…...

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WORKS CITED

LaCapra, Dominick. "Lanzmann's Shoah: "Here There Is No Why." Critical Inquiry, Vol. 23. No. 2, Winter 1997: 231-69.

Levi, Primo. The Drowned and the Saved. NY: Summit Books, 1986.

Somehow his scientific side needs to make sense of the horrors that are taking place about him, regardless that everything seems completely insane. He states he had "the curiosity of the naturalist who finds himself transplanted into an environment that is monstrous but new, monstrously new." He adds that he "thought too much" while in Auschwitz, which only made him continually vacillate back and forth from hope to despair.
Throughout all of his ordeals, Levi continues his writing and scientific analysis for rational answers, to no avail. His goal of finding answers to the cruelty remains unattained. When one of the guards denies even an icicle to decrease a child's thirst, Levi asks in his broken German, 'Warum?' (why?). The guard replies, 'Hier ist kein warum' (there is no why here). At times Levi's observations are so unemotional that he is almost too objective, as if he is going to…...

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References

Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz. New York: Touchstone, 1996.

trips that I made to very different places were Mexico City and the Auschwitz extermination camp in Poland, and I will describe the impressions that I remember best from these visits to two very different places. Mexico City stands out in my mind because it was my first trip to a foreign country, but Auschwitz is a place I cannot forget simply because of what it is and the evil that it represents -- and I mean that in the literal sense, because it's no exaggeration to say that evil is just in the very atmosphere of the place. I did see some terrible things in Mexico, too, but Auschwitz was always unique in my limited experience and in a category by itself. I did go back to Mexico more than once after that first visit, but had no desire ever to return to Auschwitz or anyplace like it,…...

Holocaust, and how Primo Levi survived his imprisonment in Auschwitz. Specifically, it will answer the questions: hat perspective does Levi provide on day-to-day survival within Auschwitz? Is there order amidst the chaos of mass murder? Primo Levi's book, "Survival in Auschwitz" is a compelling look at the horrors of the most notorious Nazi prison camp, Auschwitz, but more so, it is a tale of the strength of human character - the very fiber that binds us together as humans. His book not only illustrates just how much the Jews endured in the prison camps during the Holocaust, it should be must reading for any student of the Holocaust who hopes to understand just a modicum of what was endured, and what it took to live through these unspeakable horrors.
Survival in Auschwitz

Primo Levi was one of the lucky few who survived the horrific prison camp of Auschwitz operated by the…...

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Works Cited

Primo. Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity. Trans. Stuart Woolf. New York: Collier, 1961.http://www.questia.com/PageManagerHTMLMediator.qst?action=openPageViewer&docId=33494652"Levi,

For us, on the contrary, the Lager is not a punishment; for us, no end is foreseen and the Lager is nothing but a manner of living assigned to us, without limits of time, in the bosom of the Germanic social organism. (82-83)
The personal choice to leave or to stay, despite desperation was given to civilian workers and completely absent for the Jews, due to no act of their own. The only power they had was to live within the confines of Primo's early assertion in the work; "that man is bound to pursue his own ends by all possible means, while he who errs but once pays dearly." (13) ithin each novel there is a clear sense that choice is derived only from the immediate circumstances, which are entirely outside of one's control and yet almost completely determine even their very survival.

orks Cited

Levi, Primo, Survival in Auschwitz. New…...

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Works Cited

Levi, Primo, Survival in Auschwitz. New York: Touchstone, 1996.

Singh, Khushwant, Train to Pakistan. New York, Grove Press, 1994.

Eliezer and his father
Over the course of the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the narrator Eliezer's relationship with his father shifts from that of a conventional father-son relationship to a relationship in which Eliezer eventually becomes the stronger of the two men. Eliezer quickly becomes a man because of the historical circumstances to which he is subjected. Growing up in a concentration camp he soon learns that his father is far from infallible -- physically, emotionally, and intellectually. At first the son looks to his father for guidance during their confinement in the ghetto and during their initial tenure in the camp. Then he grows impatient with his father's physical weakness, and finally takes the more active, dominant role in the relationship because of his youth and greater physical strength.

Night opens in a Nazi-occupied ghetto in Eastern Europe. Eliezer's father is a source of strength for the other residents,…...

The German suffering after the first world war and the humiliation of Germany with other nations gave the Nazis the opportunity to feed hatred of the Jews and at the same time promise that if the People gave in to the Nazi ideology, they would be in the land that would hold them a superior way of life. That the followers of Hitler followed the Ideals as true and that they also created in their own minds the need to eliminate groups of people who disagree like the communists and the Jews was the fundamental cause of the holocaust. Why did it come about? It was argued that while the political climate of the times did not show much promise, Hitler was able to deliver what he promised even if it was based on evil. This gave him ground support. One of the chief supporters of Hitler, and Aman who…...

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References

Abzug, Robert H. 1985. Inside the Vicious Heart: Americans and the Liberation of Nazi

Concentration Camps. Oxford University Press: New York.

Aroneanu, Eugene; Whissen, Thomas. 1996. Inside the Concentration Camps:

Eyewitness Accounts of Life in Hitler's Death Camps. Praeger: Westport, CT.

Undoubtedly, this association is partially explained by his postwar notoriety, but the ubiquitous image of Mengele at the ramp in so many survivors' accounts has also to do with the fact that Mengele often appeared "off-duty" in the selection area whenever trainloads of new prisoners arrived at Auschwitz, searching for twins."
Mengele's fascination with twins, and especially with experimentation on twins in order to find a way in which he could potentially double the size of the German race, led him to experiment on everything from eyesight, to pain tolerance, to tuberculosis. From witness accounts, Mengele would even inject the children with diseases, which often provoked vomiting and diarrhea, or would subject them to cuts while strapped to a table.

Because of his firsthand experimentation and selection of many prisoners, Mengele is responsible for countless numbers of deaths. Furthermore, due to his orders, others were either tortured, maimed, or killed at…...

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Works Cited:

Evans, Nick. "Nazi Angel of Death Josef Mengele 'created Twin Town in Brazil'" the Telegraph UK. 21 Jan. 2009. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. .

"Holocaust History." Josef Mengele. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. .

"Holocaust History." Nazi Medical Experiments. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. .

"Josef Mengele (German Physician)." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. .

poison used in the gas chambers, to the thousands of empty suitcases, clearly marked with names, which Nazi personnel emptied and appropriated after their owners were gassed to death. The Nazis not only took the lives of millions of Jews, they took everything that was a reminder of their lives. The world stood by while this occurred, and did nothing.
Why did the world stand by and allow millions of Jews to disappear into the death camps? Perhaps it was because most people could not comprehend anything so sinister and evil. Who could possibly believe that such evil could exist in the world? Who could believe that a race could incite so much hatred that another race would attempt to completely exterminate them? The very idea seems beyond imagination or possibility. Perhaps that is one reason the world stood by and watched as the Jewish ghettos emptied. They simply could…...

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References

Editors. "Then and Now." Remember.org. 2006. 9 June 2006. http://remember.org/then-and-now/tn03.html

Winfrey, Oprah. "Inside Auschwitz: The End of Times." Oprah.com. 2006. 9 June 2006. http://www.oprah.com/obc_classic/featbook/night/holo/holo_trip_350_101.jhtml