Journal #2

“Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often easily loses himself. He will be a man whose life or death can be lightly decided with no sense of human affinity, in the most fortunate of cases, on the basis of a pure judgment of utility. It is in this way that one can understand the double sense of the term ‘extermination camp’, and it is now clear what we seek to express with the phrase: ‘to lie on the bottom’. ” (Pg 27)


The phrase ‘to lie on the bottom’ simply means to be in Hell. The environment of Auschwitz was the worst human condition that can possibly exist. Primo Levi describes the condition as “We had reached the bottom. It is not possible to sink lower than this” (Pg 26). It completely violated the rudimentary and fundamental rights of human beings by implementing amoral actions such as removing the individual’s name and replacing it as numbers, taking away clothes, shoes, hair, and even one’s life. When one loses everything, his life becomes miserable and don’t see the purpose of life. Then he become less dignified, restraint and resilient, and basically give up his life. Thus the Jewish ‘haftlings’ in Auschwitz were like puppets. They had no choice or option whatsoever. They either worked or died. They were living in Hell.