According to Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz, how did Auschwitz Essay

According to Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz, how did Auschwitz systematically dehumanize the prisoners - Essay Example Men, women and children were dumped in the concentration camps not for the purpose of reformation and rehabilitation. Their spirits were totally subdued before their bodies were disposed of through heinous procedures. Primo Levi writes, â€Å"Then for the first time we became aware that our language lacks words to express this offence, the demolition of a man. In a moment, with almost prophetic intuition, the reality was revealed to us; we had reached the bottom. It is not possible to sink lower than this; no human condition is more miserable than this, nor could it conceivably be so.†(16) Even the garbage that is being lodged in the dumpers commands some sort of discipline and procedure for disposal. But the human beings in the concentration camps were stripped of all their possessions, their self-respect included. Levi’s only apprehension was what he was going to lose next? Was there anything more for being robbed at all! Dehumanization is the psychological process; o ne’s feelings and emotions are attacked. It is more vicious than the physical violence. In the psychological torture of an individual he is made to feel not worthy, he is the lesser category of a human being. ... SS was the German force who generally handled the affairs of concentration camps. These camps were spread across the occupied Europe and Jews were going to be the main group of prisoners here. As the account of those dark days begins, Levi vividly describes a scene of deportation where before a group of isolated Jews waiting in some station, a notorious transport train came and halted. Levi was one of these unfortunate people, and he writes that the â€Å"goods wagons closed from the outside, with men, women and children pressed together without pity, like cheap merchandise, for a journey towards nothingness, a journey down there, towards the bottom.† (12-13) So what did this bottom mean? Was it a seemingly endless see of grief, wherein the unfortunate Jews were being thrown to explore the so called bottom? To reach this bottom, each and every prisoner was to be transcended through a definite process of systematic torture. This was the avenue of Nazi torture and related contor tion tactics to humiliate the otherwise cultured and generally well-to-do people †¦ Europe’s Jewish people. Nazi concentration camp administrators divided the captured and/or deported Jews in different groups mainly as per their working capabilities. Levi was put in the group of mostly young adult males, who could be used as forced labor under conditions of strict bondage. This bondage extended from mere enslavement to continuous subhuman living. The prisoners were kept on minimal food. They were subjected to terrible cold. They were forced to denude before each other and bath together in a crowded manner. They were to stand in ankle deep ice cold water. Being a forced laborer, Levi was asked to do various sorts of works by the Officers at