I go back inside the train; I carry out dead infants; I unload luggage. I touch corpses, but I cannot overcome the mounting, uncontrollable terror. I try to escape from the corpses, but they are everywhere: lined up on the gravel, on the cement edge of the ramp, inside the cattle cars. Babies, hideous naked women, men twisted by convulsions. I run off as far as I can go, but immediately a whip slashes across my back. Out of the corner of my eye I see an S.S.man, swearing profusely. I stagger forward and run, lose myself in the Canada group. Now, at last, I can once more rest against the stack of rails.

-What is going on in the example you share?  This is  a description of his life, and from this part, I can know his feeling, he has to face the dead body every day, and he is desperate.

-What about this example made a particularly strong impression on you?  The first sentence, “I carry out dead infants.”

–What is its significance within the context of the story? There are so many people dead, he wants to escape the corpses, but they are everywhere. Killing is not a serious thing in there, dead body all around. I can image from his description, there is a dark place, and people has no freedom.

–What questions does it raise? life is cheap in there, even the infants. All the sentences can express his feeling. I think this example include a lot of information, his daily life, the environment, the situation he faces.

One example in Borowski’s “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” that had a profound effect on me was on page 702 of his narrative. There, he was helping unload the trains of the new transports that were being brought into his camp. Their job was to help gather up everything that was brought on the trains – food, valuables, clothing, even bodies He describes the experience in one of the cars:

                “In the corners, among human excrement and abandoned wrist-watches lie squashed, trampled infants, naked little monsters with enormous heads and bloated bellies. We carry them out like chickens, holding several in each hand.”

When I came to that paragraph, it was one of those moments that you had to just pause and let what the narrator was saying sink in. Because part of my mind just couldn’t fully comprehend the words, couldn’t possibly visualize the horrific scene that he was describing. His wording was simple, almost nonchalant when he talked about finding “squashed, trampled infants” amidst the other personal belongings. It was such an embodiment of dehumanization when he talked about disposing of them like you would a chicken, carrying “several in each hand.” That’s what really got me. Growing up, my grandparents had chickens. Being a big animal lover, I was always so upset whenever they found an old one that had died. I hated watching my grandfather get rid of it, because he would never bury it like I wanted to. Instead, he would walk it across the street, holding it by its legs, and toss its body into the woods like it was nothing more than a bag of garbage.  When I was reading this, it brought me back to that memory, only here it was so, so much worse. Because here, Borrowski was talking about babies. Little infants who were being disposed of like they were nothing more than a dead bird. I think this is what made it so significant to the story, because it showed how completely devalued their lives had become. They were malnourished, neglected, and regarded as nothing more than a farm animal.  And not only that, but they were TRAMPLED – flattened by other human feet. The inhumane conditions and the panic and terror of everyone around them made keeping them safe a last priority, the complete opposite of what our human nature towards an innocent child is supposed to be. It made me wonder, had anyone tried to save them? Or were they just so desperate to stay alive that it wasn’t even a second thought? What about the mothers? Were the conditions so abysmal that even they put their own survival above their child’s? It was such a small excerpt from the narrator’s story, yet it’s one that made such a severe, lasting impression.

“Several other men are carrying a small girl with only one leg. They hold her by the arms and the one leg. Tears are running down her face and she whispers faintly: ‘Sir, it hurts, it hurts…’ They throw her on the truck on top of the corpses. She will burn alive along with them.

A young girl is being thrown into the truck with the dead bodies just because she is missing a leg, although she is crying and telling the workers that they are hurting her, no one seems to care. There is absolutely no compassion for anyone who is not capable of working in the concentration camps. She is thrown into the trucks just like the corpses and no one can do anything about that because they know that she will just end up being put into the crematorium with the bodies. The lack of compassion in the concentration camps is something that made an impression on me because they treated a live human being just like one of the other corpses, which made her less of a human being than anyone else there.

This raises questions like the men who are carrying this girl are part of the concentration camps, but why do they seem to have no compassion for anyone else, so have they been numbed to the circumstances?

What is going on in the example: Striking dehumanization occurs on page 704 where we see a mother abandoning her child, moving as fast as she can as her child follows behind her, begging that he/she is not left behind in an attempt to show that she is strong and able to work. Had she succeeded, she would have been sent to the female camp and not the gas chambers. Instead, a man named Andrei sees this happening and in disgust strikes the woman, grabs her by the neck, and throws her  into the truck headed for the gas chambers. Her child is thrown in with her.

What about this example made a particularly strong impression on me: This particular story stood out to me because it shows a primal survival instinct coming to the surface, causing the woman to disregard maternal instinct and leave her child to die. The second part to this part of the story is that Andrei, a prisoner, is so desentizied to death and pain that even as someone who knows the struggles of being in a Nazi death camp, he seems to have no problem striking a woman and throwing her and her child onto a truck that would take her to her death like livestock.

What is its significance within the context of the story: This part of the story goes to show how especially the Canada group of prisoners becomes desensitized to the horrors of the camps and acts in their best interests as a survival instinct.

What questions does it raise:

Why does Andrei not sympathize with the woman?

Was Andrei rewarded for this behavior?

Is it even possible for a human being in Andrei or the woman’s position to not become dehumanized?

Borwski’s fictional memoir of his experience at the extermination camp of Birkenau raises a question of civilization and what’s it meant to be a human being. It’s undeniable that the whole Nazi system and its leaders – the Schutzstaffels (S.S.), the Nazi polices, leave many readers terrified with their inhumane personalities. Nonetheless, what is most inconceivably striking about the camp lies in how the physical and mental tortures at the camp have made even the normal and innocent Jewish, Greeks, Polish, French turn against each other for survival. One particular instant that speaks directly to the above statement occurs when Borowski is cleaning up dead bodies of infants, whom he describes as “naked little monsters with enormous heads and bloated bellies”, by giving them to the women at the extermination camp. While the women are all in “horror”, “covering their eyes”, the S.S officer unaffectedly “shakes his head in disgust” looking at the dreadful scene (702). More disgustingly, the lives these innocent babies are not as much of importance to him as smoking a cigarette – “his cigarette lighter is not working properly, he examines it carefully”. Borowski, on the contrary, is utterly aware of his actions – he even questions himself before Henri “Are we good people”. Even though Borowski appears to be inhumane and immoral in his obedience to the Nazi police, his desire to survive oust him from his standard of morality. At first, I was furious about Borowski’s actions and his, yet that irritation slightly drifts to Henri, who explains:
“Ah, on the contrary, it is natural, predictable, calculated. The ramp exhausts you, you rebel – and the easiest way to relieve your hate is to turn against someone weaker. Why, I’d even call it health”
Through this scene, it’s worth noticing the dysfunctionality of human behaviors and mindset. Under similar circumstance, people rationalize differently. While Borowski remains hesitant and doubtful of his action, Henri, on the other hand, simply attributes them to human nature.

“We line up. Someone has marked down our numbers, someone up ahead yells, “March, March,” and now we are running towards the gate, accompanied by the shouts of a multilingual throng that is already being pushed back to the barracks. Not everybody is lucky enough to be going on the ramp . . . We have almost reached the gate. Links, zwei, drei, vier! Mützen ab! Erect, arms stretched stiffly along our hips, we march past the gate briskly, smartly, almost gracefully. A sleepy S.S. man with a large pad in his hand checks us off, waving us ahead in groups of five.”

• In the example I chose the prisoners of the concentration camp are being marked down by their numbers that the Nazi’s gave to them to dehumanize them. By giving them numbers it takes away from the fact that these are human beings and turns them more into objects in the eyes of the Nazis. The Nazis are making the prisoners march towards the barracks, and they get checked by a S.S officer who then sends them in groups of five.

• The critical part of this example that made an impression on me is the steps which the Nazis took to dehumanize these prisoners. By numbering them and essentially taking away their names it was a way for the Nazis to cope with what they were doing and make the prisoners forget that they are humans.

• The significance of this part in the context of the story, is this a crucial step that the Nazis took to dehumanize their prisoners. When a prisoner would be brought to a concentration camp the first thing that would happen is they would shave their hair, put them in uniform, and give them a tattoo with a number that was unique for that prisoner.

• How can a group of people justify such horrific acts against other human beings?
• Was the dehumanizing process more for the Nazis to cope with their actions or so the prisoners begin to forget they’re humans?

The example of dehumanization that I chose is the moment the heads pushed through the windows to gasp for air when the transport arrived. This was when the train finally reached the station and the Jewish are going to be loaded onto the trucks that will take them to their death.

This made a strong impression because numerous people have suffered from being stuffed in a small space with no water or air. When they finally reached the destination, they assume that things will be better, but little did they know that they were going to die. And all the jewels, gold, and food that they attempted to hide and save were all for nothing.

This is significant within the context of the story because it provides proof of inhumanity, ruthlessness, and lack of emotion that Germans had.

This text raises the question on Germans and their ethics and character.

In the example of dehumanization that I chose to discuss, a woman is beaten before being thrown onto a truck and having her child chucked at her feet. During this interaction, the Jews are undergoing a selection process. Trucks came to pick them up and transport them to gas chambers. Any Jew that didn’t make it onto a truck will be used for work. Noticing that those who are best fit to work will survive; the woman tries to ditch her child. However, Andrei notices and makes her pay for it, beating her and tossing the child to her feet.

This was particularly striking to me due to the harsh treatment of the child. A child is born innocent having no reason to cause or receive harm from anyone in the world. This particular child didn’t even exchange a single word with Andrei and still had to suffer.

This is significant in the context of the story because Andrei is not a Nazi member and was not instructed by anyone to harm this woman or her child. He acted upon her in order to impress the S.S soldiers that surrounded him. This is significant because the characters no longer make decisions for themselves, but for those around them.

This moment raises a question of ethics. Andrei wanted to punish the woman with good reason. She was about to abandon her child in the selfish hopes of survival. However, the fact that he threw the child at her and sent them both to be killed at the gas chamber, I am left asking, is Andrei any better than the Nazis themselves?

“‘Pick up your child, woman!’ ‘It’s not mine, sir not mine!’ she shouts hysterically and runs on, covering her face with her hands. She wants to hide, she want to reach those who will not ride the trucks, those who will go on foot, those who will stay alive. ”

• In this particular section in the story a late shipment of jews come into the camp and the people are being evacuated from the train. What is important of these prisoners is that some know the drill of if you go on the car they will take you to die but if they take you by foot then you will live. The woman that gets off this train tries to catch up to the group that will be walking to camp and leaves her screaming child behind.
• This particular example stood our to me because the bond between a mother and child is thought to be one that is unbreakable and may stories have been written of acts in which the mother would gladly give up her own life for her child’s, while in this one it seems to be the complete opposite.
• Its significance is that shows the lengths that one will go to in order to try and survive, letting go of all ties that make us human such as love.
• Is self preservation so important, that we are willing to abandon what make us human?