5, 6 & 7 "The Work", "A Good Day", "This Side of Good and Evil"

• Engels
• Upper Secondary (Key Stage 4)
• GCSE

Goals for today 

Homework feedback

You will explore the Kapo system and how it was employed 

You will consider "Our Nights" and music in the concentration camps.

You will explore the myth of Tantalus

Null Achtzehn - Zero Eighteen 

1. Explore the description of 'Null-Achtzehn'. What idea does he represent?
   
2. In what way can he be considered a foil to Steinlauf? 
   
3. What idea does Levi want to convey to us through these two characters? 
   
4. Write a paragraph comparing and contrasting these two characters. 
   

Ka-Be - The sick Bay

Levi’s admission to Ka-Be means that he is viewed as “economically useful” (presumably because of his chemistry knowledge) and that the camp has some further purpose in mind for him than just manual work.

 This purpose will be one of several factors that leads to his ultimate survival

Yet the cruelty continues – sick prisoners are forced to stand naked in the cold for hours.

The crematoria 

• The first hints of the crematoria are mentioned – those prisoners whose conditions are serious are not considered worthy of treatment and are gassed then cremated.
  
• By 1943, four crematoria were operational in Auschwitz, and were capable of burning around 8000 bodies a day.
  
• For those selected from Ka-Be, their journey is silent, without any grief, anger, or even comfort from their comrades – yet another form of dehumanisation.
  
• They cannot even react to death appropriately anymore.
  
• “Without display or anger, massacre moves through the huts of Ka-Be every day, touching here or there.”
  

Terminology 

Kapo: possibly from the Italian Capo meaning “boss”.  

A prisoner who has been placed in a position of authority over a prisoner unit, a “Kommando”. This could be Jewish or non-Jewish prisoners. They would receive special benefits like proper clothing and a private room.

If they neglected their duties they would be downgraded to ordinary prisoners and be subject to other Kapos.

The Kapo system was designed to turn prisoner against prisoner, as the Kapos had to maintain the favour of their SS overseers.

After World War II, the term was reused as an insult; according to The Jewish Chronicle, it is "the worst insult a Jew can give another Jew"

https://sydneyjewishmuseum.com.au/news/kapos/

"Our Nights" 

This chapter explores the terrors and suffering of the prisoners even at night, when they might expect some respite from the suffering they endure all day​.
The prisoners dread the morning wake up call or reveille as it heralds new horrors​.

Levi has to start all over again: he is without his clothes, his spoon, and he is in a new block without friends or allies, and he does not know the personality of the Kapo​ where he is assigned. 

Alberto 

But he meets Alberto who is resourceful, cunning and well liked.​ He is 22 and Italian. Levi admires how Alberto seems untouched by the horrors of camp life:​

“Alberto entered the Lager with his head high, and lives in here unscathed and uncorrupted…He fights for his life but still remains everybody’s friend…He himself did not become corrupt…the strong yet peace-loving man against whom the weapons of night are blunted.”​

He seems to represent that it is possible to maintain your morals in this corrupt Lager. 

Comfort and survival 

Make a list of the jobs that the prisoners create or do to earn extra ration or other privileges and that bring some semblance of comfort to the block inhabitants. 

Comfort and survival 

• There is a story-teller who “chants an interminable Yiddish rhapsody”​
  
• There are those who sew and mend clothing (the tailors) and they get a warning light to allow them to put away their needle and thread​.
  
• Engineer Kardos tends “wounded feet and suppurating corns” and he helps the prisoners to solve “the problem of living”. 
  
• The Night -guard watches in the night and assigns the bucket to be emptied.  
  
• The hut-sweepers who sweep the huts in the morning. 
  
• Lice-controllers (in chapter 8)
  

Music in the camps 

Unbelievably, there was much music and song on both sides of the barbed wire​. There were even official camp orchestras. Music was used as a tool by both sides:​

The prisoners used it to keep their spirits up​ and the Nazis used it as propaganda and a tool of oppression​

Read the article on the next slide 

Music in the camps 

holocaustmusic.ort.org

"Our Nights" 

Even dreams are a torment: whether it is dreams of food or of family, sleep does not bring relief to the prisoners​

Levi’s dream of being unheard by his sister represents a common fear– we all wish to be heard and to have those we love listen to our troubles​

There is also the fear that the world will not be interested in the suffering endured in the camps, or worse, will not believe that it happened ​

Holocaust denial is still common​

The morning wake up bell becomes a daily point of pain as “the sores on [his] feet reopen at once”​

The camp is defined by its rhythms of pain and relief, danger and shelter​

The Myth of Tantalus 

What is the purpose of this extract? How has Levi achieved this purpose? 

"So our nights drag on. The dream of Tantalus and the dream of the story are woven into a texture of more indistinct images: the suffering of the day, composed of hunger, blows, cold, exhaustion, fear and promiscuity, turns at night-time into shapeless nightmares of unheard- of violence, which in free life would only occur during a fever."  

Research the Myth of Tantalus. 

Why has this myth given us the word tantalising? 

Terminology - "The Work" 

Vorarbeiter: meaning “foreman”, a prisoner who supervised other prisoners when working outside the camp. ​They were not inhabitants of the camp. 

The 'vorarbeiters' could often be brutal, but some were kind or helpful.​The SS needed the system of Kapos and foremen to maintain control – as a result, far fewer guards were needed compared to normal prisons​.