“Ladies and Gentlemen, to the Gas Chamber” Tadeusz Borowski “Ladies and Gentlemen, to the Gas Chamber”

Author Polish, born in Soviet Ukraine. Both parents sent to prison camps by Stalin. Spent time in German prison camp. Committed suicide by gas.

Story narrated in impersonal, dispassionate tone. Documentary technique. Testimony of what man can do to man. What does it mean to be human? Story describes one day at the extermination camp of Birkenau, largest of three camps at Auschwitz. Senseless cruelty and mass murder. Emotions of people about to die. Systematic dehumanization.

What does it mean to “dehumanize”? Why is dehumanization of the victims necessary? How is dehumanization done? 1. The whole camp went around naked? 2. People are equated with lice and horses. 3. Ants, marching day and night. 4. Same solution used for killing lice and people. 5. Dead individuals are moved like slabs of meat. 6. Trucks leave and return as on a conveyor belt.

7. Dead children are carried out of train like chickens. 8. Organized transport, like a Walmart distribution center. 9. Germans call prisoners “dirty pigs”, spit at them. 10. People are reduced to seeing themselves and others as subhuman. “Greeks move their jaws greedily like huge, inhuman insects.” 11. Prisoner identities reduced to numbers tattooed on the arm.

Everyone assigned a double part: executioner and victim. Rage at fellow victims rather than at the executioners. Helplessness needs to vent itself at someone weaker. You cope by distancing yourself, by becoming a cog in the machine. Suspend one’s humanity: “What if there are no more transports? We’ll starve to death.

Pretense of normalcy and civilized behavior: Ramp: cheerful, like any other provincial railroad station. Trucks drive up, take lumber, cement, people… Germans act normally, talk about news from home, children, show photographs of family members. Narrator asks his friend: “Are we good people?” Are we human?

People going to their death must be deceived to the last moment People going to their death must be deceived to the last moment. It’s the only form of pity. Separating the arriving prisoners. They can’t escape gassing, but first they must be put to work. Woman with child – immoral mother. Woman willingly goes to the gas chamber. “It was a good, rich transport.” “Night falls, cool and starlit.”

Compare the attitude of the Germans and that of the prisoners toward the people who are lead to the gas chambers. Do you think that under different circumstances they could switch places? Do any of the prisoners feel any responsibility for the death of the Jews?