Journal #8: Chapter 8

What is the definition of ‘good’ and ‘evil’? Can the words ‘just’ and ‘unjust’ be existed in Auschwitz?

I was so shocked when I read that there was the Market where the workers trade items like shirts and portions of bread. The Market even had tobacco. From the previous chapters, my perception of the workers in Auschwitz was that they were tired of living in Auschwitz. I thought they wouldn’t bother to be active except when they eat, work and sleep. However, they actively traded their shirts for little pieces of bread. Of course, trading was forbidden by the SS men, but following the regulation, which is a part of being good, was not a big deal to the workers.

As I read this chapter, I wondered if morality can exist in an extremely depressing place such as Auschwitz. I doubt it. I think there would no concept of being moral or immoral in Auschwitz. More specifically, I think the people would not be even attempted to bother to think about morality. They are physically and mentally exhausted and do not find joy in Auschwitz. Why would they care about being righteous? Most of us care about being ‘good’ because we have comfortable life. We don’t have to worry about our basic needs such as what we are going to eat tomorrow. But for the men in Auschwitz, surviving is the main hardship. How they live tomorrow is not important to them; whether they’ll live or not is important. Therefore, the words such as good, evil, or moral would not mean the same as they do to us. I think the concepts would be all ignored and forgotten in Auschwitz because being ‘good’ wouldn’t help the people to survive there.

Memorable Quotes:
“Here scores of prisoners driven desperate by hunger prowl around, with lips half-open and eyes gleaming, lured by a deceptive instinct to where the merchandise shown makes the gnawing of their stomachs more acute and their salvation more assiduous” (78).

“For us, on the contrary, the Lager is not a punishment; for us, no end is foreseen and the Lager is nothing but a manner of living assigned to us, without limits of time, in the bosom of the Germanic social organism” (83).

“We now invite the reader to contemplate the possible meaning in the Lager of the words ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ ‘just’ and ‘unjust’; let everybody judge, on the basis of the picture we have outlined and of the examples given above, how much of our ordinary moral world could survive on this side of the barbed wire” (86).