Survival in Auschwitz

by Primo Levi

men exist but are few and outside the camp, and are seen relatively infrequently. Our effective masters in practice are the green triangles, who have a free hand over us, as well as those of the other two categories who are ready to help them—and they are not few.

SS Men not frequently inside camp. The camp essentially is ran by the prisoners.

The confusion of languages is a fundamental component of the manner of living here: one is surrounded by a perpetual Babel, in which everyone shouts orders and threats in languages never heard before, and woe betide whoever fails to grasp the meaning. No one has time here, no one has patience, no one listens to you; we latest arrivals instinctively collect in the corners, against the walls, afraid of being beaten.

Anxiety of language barriers. This just adds to the already frustrating and difficulty of the situation.

normal order of things that the privileged oppress the unprivileged: the social structure of the camp is based on this human

Hierarchy

Then one of them took my arm and looked at my number and then both laughed still more strongly. Everyone knows that the 174000s are the Italian Jews, the well-known Italian Jews who arrived two months ago, all lawyers, all with degrees, who were more than a hundred and are now only forty; the ones who do not know how to work, and let their bread be stolen, and are slapped from the morning to the evening. The Germans call them “zwei linke Hände” (two left hands), and even the Polish Jews despise them as they do not speak Yiddish.

Numbers correlate to respect

this: take care not to suffer in your own homes what is inflicted on us here.