Survival Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity by Primo Levi

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Book Report
From Chapter 2 titled On the Bottom in the article “Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity” by Primo Levi is a story of endurance and the extent of human evil. The story revolves around a young Jewish-Italian man, Primo Levi, captured by the Nazi soldiers. Together with thousands of other Jewish, Primo is taken to Auschwitz in a concentration and extermination camp in Poland. The article focuses on human suffering at the mercy of an administration that disregards human dignity. The Nazi mistreat the strip them, expose them to extreme cold, starve them, and work them almost to death. It becomes evident that Primo wanted to highlight how human beings can portray evil both individual and institutional. On an individual level, many Nazi soldiers in the concentration camp mistreat the Jewish because they see them as an outcast. They consider them a race that is not worthy of living. Further, on an institutional level, the Nazi administration has set up measures that not only discriminates against the Jewish, but also violates their dignity. The Nazi administration has trained its soldiers to treat the Jewish as less than human and people who can be done away with at any time. This becomes evident in the way hundreds of Jewish children, women, and men die in the Auschwitz concentration camp because of exposure to extreme weather conditions, poor living conditions, and even starvation. Evidently, Primo’s article shows how the lifespan of the Jewish in the concentration camp is short (one month) because of the harsh and inhuman condition...