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In the story “This way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen,” Borowski uses his imagination to create an exaggerated fictional environment of the concentration camp during WWII. Through a first-person point of view, Borowski depicts the physical and mental torture he witnesses as a prisoner who unloads new arrived prisoners off the train. Under the dehumanized condition, prisoners, German guards, and the narrator manifest human nature to the fullest. It reminds me one of the previous works we have read, “Metamorphosis.” Similar to Borowski’s work, in “Metamorphosis” the narrator has a physical transformation, which eventually exposes his family’s attitude towards him.

In both works, the authors construct plots that are fictional to allude to the themes of human nature, both bright side and dark side. For example, in “This way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen,” an old female prisoner shows sympathy to the narrator as she acknowledges the harsh reality the narrator has to face, even though he doesn’t feel bad for Jews at all. Or the moment when a little boy is running after his mom while the mom refuses to admit that is her son. Because of the inhuman environment, human nature appears in its purest form. Similarly, Gregor Samsa suffers from isolation from his family after his transformation. Not knowing Gregor Samsa is still a human under his insectile appearance, his family feels embarrassed and hides him from outside world. Moreover, they refuse to acknowledge Gregor for who he is regardless of what he looks like.

After reading many great texts throughout this course, I think “ This way to the Gas, Ladies, and Gentlemen” by Tadeusz Borowski is one the greatest texts I have ever read because of the Information It carries and the history it’s covering. This text shows how prisoners were cruelly treated in the concentration camps during the time of the Nazis. Even though this is a fictional story, it gives the reader a well-detailed depiction of how human beings can be during wars, and during times like this, good people are forced to act in an inhumane way to just survive. Besides the Nazis that were sending the Jews to the gas chambers, prisoners in these concentration camps were forced by the nazis to fulfill the same job. As Borowski being a part of those political prisoners, I think one of Borowski’s concerns when writing this story is how readers will distinguish between what the Nazis we’re doing to the Jews and what prisoners were forced to do to those Jews prisoners. With that being said, reading this text made me feel sad for the jews that were sent to their death in gas chambers and made me feel bad for those prisoners that were forced to be a part of the acts enforced against the Jewish prisoners. To add to this, I think these events in this story are so relatable to the events in the war in my country Yemen. Since the war started in Yemen in 2015, I have heard many times that the militias that are opposing Legitimate government are kidnapping and imprisoning important people for political reasons because they were opposing their acts or they spoke against them and I never believed that these kidnappings could be true until obviously reading this story. In fact, some of my family members experienced those kidnappings where they were sent underground prisons, which they were brainwashed and tortured until they changed their views on these rebellions. This text only confirms that a lot of bad things will happen during times like this and therefore many people will end up being the victims.

I found this text very interesting because of the turn it took. When I started reading the text, I tried to predict the way it will end in my head, thinking that maybe due to the quarrels that both wives constantly had, that they will end up killing themselves or something of that sort, but that wasn’t the case. This for me is why the text really interested me, because due to the shift it took, as Dukhiram ends up being the one that killed his wife, the real character of everyone in the household was exposed, especially that of Chidam which added more substance to the text. It gave it a different rhythm. Although I feel like this is what makes this work great, I feel this play is a great work of art for various other reasons too.

Another reason is how it tells a story of what we see going on in the society, and it tells it in a very clear to understand way. Reading the text honestly made me feel bad, because even if I understand that he Chidam was trying to save his brother, probably with the mindset that “Blood is thicker than water”, he shouldn’t have done it at the expense of somebody else’s life which in this text was actually his wife. This text just goes to show me that we should not fully trust anybody at all, because anyone can betray you, and if I had something to say back to the text, it will be that Chandara should have stood up for herself and shouldn’t have taken the blame for something she didn’t do. Now I understand that her silence was still a response, and was probably a way for her to make Chidam feel bad about what he did, I still feel that it made her look weak because everyone that didn’t know the situation looked at her bad. Reading this text just made me think of people in the real world, who have been accused and actually paid the consequences of crimes that they did not commit simply because they were trying to cover up for someone, or they were being set up like Chandara was. This text really just taught me not to trust people and put myself first sometimes.

         What did you learn from this story that you did not previously know about life in Nazi concentration camps?

        Prior to reading this text I had been informed of the tortuous ways of the Nazi concentration camps. I remember potentially in high being educated in high of the train carts and how packed the trains had been as well as the unsanitary conditions in these carts. What I wasn’t aware of was the fact that infants had been involved as well. As the people are being exited from the carts we can notice the dead infants along with the others along the train dead as well. I didn’t know that the heartlessness of the Nazi guards to go as far as a lack of care of infants. To have no care for new live seems a bit extreme. Could you even imagine new life instantly being thrown into a gas chamber only to live for so shortly. Any life presented upon in that train was not safe. No matter who came out of that train it seems your life was instantly on the line and survival is unlikely. 

A tall, grey-haired woman who has just arrived on the “transport” whispers, “My poor boy,” to our narrator.  What does she mean?

            The tall grey haired woman understands the narrators circumstances. The narrator had been a political prisoner doing simply what he is told to. The narrator goes through gruesome scenes coming across dead bodies as well as those soon to be exposed to the gas chambers. If the narrator wants any chance of survival he must do as he is told or he’ll end up like those he comes across in the camp. The woman feels for him and likely feels for the rest of the prisoners as a they are all living through a horrific time period. He could be feeling sorry for her as well as he knows her time could be coming to an end as well. 

    Explain the significance of the story’s title. “This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentleman.” What seems strange about it?

      This way to gas is obviously discussing the narrator talking about those coming off the transport or at the camp inevitably be led to theirs death. They are lead to the gas chambers where their lives are instantly taken from them. What comes off as strange about the title is it seems uplifting in kind of a sarcastic way. Obviously the narrator deals with millions of emotions seeing people die left and right so their may be times he doesn’t really know how to deal with them. Saying this way to the gas ladies and gentlemen made me think they are being led to maybe somewhere a little more promising.

I think all of these texts are all great works (otherwise there won’t appear in our class haha). But I want to share my thoughts on In the Wineshop. At first, modernism seems difficult for me to read compared to realism because there rarely is plot and interesting story. I was pretty confused when I read the In the Wineshop at the first time. It seems that it’s a story in the story—the main plots come from conversation with the friends. In this way, the central theme is harder to find because it’s not that obvious and directly. This text reminds me that learning English and introducing western education system starts early in China and the well-educated people during that period all have some overseas study experience. This tradition of learning advanced knowledge in developed countries, especially the U.S. and the U.K. continues at present. And for my own perspective, this is also the reason for me to study in the U.S. and to pursue a doctoral degree later. You may not know that being a professor in China in the top-tier schools require an overseas PhD degree now, and the U.S. PhD seems to be best appreciated. Although the U.S.-China relation seems to be not as good as ten or twenty years ago, people still find that studying in the U.S. is an optimal choice. Lu Wei-fu and Lu Xun have their dream roughly 100 years ago and their dream is to study hard and then create value for the country. But their dreams are blocked by the reality. When Lu Wei-fu compromises himself to still be a Confucianism teacher, he leaves his passion to try to find Ah-Shun, but still fails. Perhaps this is the greatest sadness for him. Compared to my situation today, I feel lucky that I can learn whatever I like. I can teach finance and economics when I finish my PhD and enjoy my own interests. I am free to love and marriage. Heart-breaking results happen to Ah-Shun should no longer happen to contemporary girls. Great works depict the social situation in a literal way and can be good sources for us to taste the development of the society.

          Tagore’s “Punishment” and Hedda Gabler build a strong connection after reading both texts. Both I feel involve main characters living life in lies. Dukhiram Rui and Chidam Rui, both follow through will their lies to the very end regarding the murder of Durkhiram’s wife. It didn’t take them to confess the truth till the very end but it had been too late. Hedda had been living her own relationship in lies I feel as she doesn’t truly love her husband or even the house that she resides in.  Both texts to involve hiding the secret of being responsible for someone’s death. Hedda knew she had accounted for Loevborgs death. Both Dukhiram and Hedda hadn’t really been in the correct state of mind as well. Dukhiram has become infuriated with his wife’s nagging, and by the point Hedda hands the gun over we can slowly see she is slowly losing it throughout the text as she even used the gun prior just to shoot around recklessly. Both texts involve females being so unhappy with their current situations that they preferred death than living. In Punishment Chandara couldn’t even give any final words to her husband before being sent away. She preferred death than to be with someone who has given her up in order to save himself and his brother. At this point life isn’t worth living to her. Hedda may not hate her husband as much as Chandara, but he isn’t someone she truly lusts over or truly wants to be with. Both of these characters come to the end of the play really feel that they have nothing left to live for. The only happiness they can find now is by death, and they become perfectly ok with that. Men in both texts effect the feelings and emotions of these woman, but these woman rather be dead than deal with these men or their current life situations.

Why does Hedda give Loevborg the pistol? What does she mean when she urges him, “Can you see to it that – that when you do it, you bathe it in beauty?” How does that work out?

Hedda takes notice of Loevborg’s latest interest in killing himself. She follows by lending him her pistol, the pistol she previously had been playing around with shooting around recklessly. She gives him this pistol noticing that he feels lifeless and has nothing to live for. I feel this is when Hedda Gabler may relate to Loevborg. She herself doesn’t seem to enjoy the life she is living. By giving him the gun she is allowing him to do what she feels she really wants to do. She understands Loevborg non desire to live life. She may be putting herself in his shoes. If she had the opportunity to commit suicide she would too. When she says, “Can you see to it that – that when you do it, you bathe it in beauty?”, I feel she means that the beauty would be dying peacefully in your own way. She hopes that he goes out on his own terms the way he desires to. This eventually doesn’t workout as he accidentally kills himself with getting shot in the stomach. This could be a further foreshadow of Hedda having a child as it is still unknown throughout the play whether she is pregnant or not. Hedda did however get to go out the way she wanted to finally pulling the trigger on herself.

  One of my favorite readings so far is  “This Way For The Gas, Ladies And Gentlemen”,by Tadeusz Borowski. It is an easy to read text that is about events that happened, not this specific story but the history around it. It gives us plenty of details, about how those people lived in the camps by just mentioning one task that they had to go through. That task is to unload the trains that moved people into the camps, separate them into which will go to the camps (women and men separately) and which will go straight to get killed and also  how they had to take the dead bodies off the trains, and take the peoples belongings.The task in addition with the protagonist’s thoughts it made me feel very emotional. That is a reason why I think this is a Great Work,not just because you learn something about this historical event but also because with just words you feel all these emotions and you have pictures of what it might be like for them,

 I liked the  scene in this story where there is a “tall, grey-haired woman” (702), where she sees the protagonist struggling to complete his task, and she kindly helps him and tells him “my poor boy”. I think that this is a very strong scene with just a few lines, that made me realize how those people even in those very difficult and inhumane times they would try to help each other and try to make them understand that this is not their fault. This also reminds me of our current situation with the pandemic, where people will try to help each other even if they wouldn’t do it before the pandemic, and it gives me a positive vibe which is opposite of the theme of the text which is a sad story. 

 I have heard many times the phrase “history repeats itself”,and I think that texts like this one, that not just states the facts but triggers emotions are important because we certainly would want to avoid something like that happening again.

What did you learn from this story that you did not previously know about life in Nazi concentration camps?

I knew that the Nazi concentration camps were horrendous but imagining them leaving their kids so they could potentially live a little bit longer seems like a decision that would break a person. It really makes you question if the people that existed during this time, had an ability to completely detach themselves from the situation. Humanity wasn’t an option, you just acted and didn’t question it at all. On top of that, I knew that there were a lot of people involved in this but the idea of kids or babies that were stomped to death somehow makes a horrible situation, even worse. This was one of the times in history in which humanity fell apart. When enough people do the same thing, we convince herself it’s okay or it’s normal. Even reporters who study hate groups for an extended amount of time, struggle to not normalize these ideas that these groups preach as time goes on.

A tall, grey-haired woman who has just arrived on the “transport” whispers, “My poor boy,” to our narrator.  What does she mean?

The gray-haired woman saying “my poor boy” is her way of sympathizing or at least attempting to understand the position that he’s in. She has lived long enough to understand when a person is a product of the environment. She doesn’t blame him for anything, she doesn’t see him as the center of all evil, she just sees him as a young boy taking orders. Any action that he has taken so far wasn’t his choice, and in a general sense I don’t think she blames most of the people that are there. She understands that this is how society works. Whether she likes it or not, the people that are in charge were doing the things they were doing because of the environment they were a part of. They were the product of the environment. Just this small moment showcased that she was one of the wisest people in the story, she blamed no one because everybody was doing the same thing.

“Are we good people?” asks our narrator.  What is this exchange about? What do you think?

Right after asking this question, our narrator goes on to say that how he only feels anger for the Jews and nothing else. I think this was a way of him trying to solidify the significance of the actions he took instead of questioning it. This is because if you question it, he will feel completely out of place and wrong. There would be no way for him to explain this to himself, so he just only adds to the negativity. And in my opinion, I don’t think the majority of the people involved in this are good people or bad people, they were just weak people. They saw something happening and that they were happy that it wasn’t happening to them. They were able to diffuse the responsibility and just take orders. Nothing seemed entirely wrong because everybody was doing it. It’s easy to let society take control of you, just to follow the path, especially if you went against it it would mean putting your life on the line. This is why I think there were no good or bad people in this, they’re just people.

Question #1:

There are a lot of things I don’t know about the concentration camps. One thing that I found out in this text and shocked me was the details about how they “received” new people in the train stations. All those details about how people that were already in the camps were there and they moved dead bodies from the trains, how they had thousands of people and they were separating them at the station and didn’t tell them that some of them were going to die later.  I had an idea of how all this was happening but didn’t know all these details. 

Question #3:

I think that a moment that is very dehumanizing is on page 704 where we see a mother deny her own child even when the child is crying and call her. I feel like as we know the bond of a mother with her child is very strong and I can only imagine what she had been through and decided to leave it behind. Probably she thought she was doing the best but still I think the separation of a mother and her child is very difficult and that when she decides to do it is even worse for her

Question #4:

I think this woman, being probably old, is trying to help our narrator go on with his task. I think she can recognize that he is painfully trying to do what they told him to do, and she wanted to help him by taking the little dead babies off his hand and maybe tried to comfort and make him understand that this is not his fault.