— What did you learn from this story that you did not previously know about life in Nazi concentration camps?
–This story can be described as a kind of “initiation story” for the narrator. How is he changed or transformed by the events of the narrative?
–A tall, grey-haired woman who has just arrived on the “transport” whispers, “My poor boy,” to our narrator. What does she mean?
–“Are we good people?” asks our narrator. What is this exchange about? What do you think?
–Explain the significance of the story’s title, “This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen.” What seems strange about it?
–Explain the significance of the story’s title, “This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen.” What seems strange about it?
The story’s title is unusual and a tad whimsical. Upon finishing the text however, the title does do the short story justice. The title on appearance makes being gassed to death appear to be some kind of quaint pastime, and the formal reference of “ladies and gentlemen” proceed to add to that effect. Obviously the layman understands what the gas is, but the title plays into the feelings of the Canada workers. When the narrator encounters an aristocratic women for example, he would not answer her question of where she was going. The narrator’s friend Henri also remarks how if he encountered a friend proceeding to their death, Henri would attempt to conceal the truth to comfort them. In a way, the pity and helplessness of the Canada workers mixed in with their knowledge of the camp allows them to unfortunately guide many to their deaths. The title represents the feeling of the narrator on what he is practically saying to the many people arriving by train.
1) One thing which I learned about the life in Nazi concentration camp from this story which I did not know before was that Jewish people were forced to remove their jewellery and clothing before they were sent to work or to the Gas chamber to get killed.
What did you learn from this story that you did not previously know about life in Nazi concentration camps?
I learned how they burned people until death; children, women and men of all ages. It was heartbreaking how they “carried dead infants like chickens, holding several in each hand”. I also learned how actually millions of people died in the Holocaust. Their deaths were cruel and brutal, as if they were animals.
A tall, grey-haired woman who has just arrived on the “transport” whispers, “My poor boy,” to our narrator. What does she mean?
This women is walking to her death and she feels bad for our narrator. She says “My poor boy” to him feeling bad for his circumstances. At first this was quite strange for me but I take it she realizes this must be killing certain parts of him inside. she will soon die but he will live for a long time with this guilt. It would haunt him for as long as he lives. He is saying that he hates them and that he does not have any pity for thier circumstance but the only alternative would to hate himself. Thus he put all his anger towards them, its way to cope with horrible situation he is in. She feels bad for him because of this slef lothing feeling he will get and how it would torment him for as long as he lives.
What did you learn from this story that you did not previously know about life in Nazi concentration camps?
From my general knowledge about Nazi and World War II, I knew about concentration camps and how the prisoners were exploited before being burned to death. However, I have never known that majority of this camps were located in Poland rather than Germany. At the same time, it was indeed educational to know where the Reich was getting their wealth in the first place and how diversified the concentrations were by which I mean that they had prisoners from both Western and Eastern Europe [other than Soviets (Russians, Georgian, Ukrainian, etc.) and Jews].
What did you learn from this story that you did not previously know about life in Nazi concentration camps?
Even thought I knew that during World War II the Nazis used prisoners to do work for them, I didn’t know that those workers had a better lifestyle. Yes, doing the job the narrator described is forever damaging and morally disgusting, but the people that did the job described in the story, clean out train carts of dead people and collect the property of all the prisoners, had it better than anyone else. It is said that they had more food and more possessions, defiantly more than the other prisoners in the camp. I also never knew that the people that worked for the Nazis had separate living compounds specifically made for them, ones that were better than the rest. Aside from being forced to do these jobs and having a forever lasting memory of the horrors, the prisoners that were chosen to work had a greater chance of survival and a better life in the concentration camps than any other prisoner.
I learned that in Nazi concentration camp they even killed small babies and how they forced people to remove their clothes before they go work and people death was very painful. They treat them like they were animals.
Explain the significance of the story’s title, “This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen.” What seems strange about it?
The title of the story is in an inviting tone. It also sets a tone of leading someone somewhere. It has a sort of inhumane quality to it. It shows that human beings were no longer considered worthy of anything. Which is exactly what the Holocaust was. The title perfectly complies with the events in the story. The people during the Holocaust were lead to their deaths like the title’s tone of leading people somewhere.