This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

“If they didn’t believe in God and eternal life, they’d have smashed the crematoria long ago.” 

Henri quotes Karl Marx, who said, “Religion is the opiate of the people,” and asserts that religion is what keeps the masses docile. He suggests that a firm belief in an afterlife makes it easier to accept death. Of course, in the case of the camp, this is a vast oversimplification because a large part of the hesitance to rise up is likely a strong will to survive. Tadek sees this and responds by asking Henri why he, who is not religious, has not led the revolution; Henri does not respond. 

“It is the camp law: people going to their death must be deceived to the very end. This is the only permissible form of charity.”

When a new arrival asks Tadek where he is going, Tadek pretends not to understand Polish (although he is Polish himself) rather than give the man the bleak truth. Perhaps this is an act of charity from some of the inmate workers, but it is also a method of keeping the new arrivals in line. If they have hope for survival, they’re less likely to do anything that might result in being shot. 

“I lie against the cool, kind metal and dream about returning to the camp, about my bunk, on which there is no mattress, about sleep among comrades who are not going to the gas tonight. Suddenly I see the camp as a haven of peace.” 

In the heat of the day, stricken by thirst, Tadek shows how daily suffering causes one’s perspective to shift. While dealing with the horror of the freight trains and the terrible work of ushering people toward their deaths, even the concentration camp and a bed without a mattress seems like a good place to be. For those who are going to the gas chambers, the camp would likely be preferable to death.

“Real hunger is when one man regards another man as something to eat.” 

Becker defends that he had his own son executed by trying to explain a type of hunger that Tadek has not endured. Becker is Jewish, so he does not receive packages full of food from home. In this story, Becker seems to be speaking metaphorically and defending doing whatever is necessary to another person to get enough to eat. Later in the book, in “The Supper,” this concept becomes literal when starving prisoners turn to cannibalism.

“They fought for their existence fiercely and heroically. But some no longer cared. They moved only to avoid being whipped, devoured grass and sticky clay to keep from feeling too much hunger; they walked around in a daze, like living corpses.” 

Those who are active in Tadek’s stories fight to live, determined to do whatever is necessary to survive. However, there were others in the camp who were called Muslims (also Muselmann), who lost their will to fight. Through starvation and sheer exhaustion, they accepted that they would die soon and retreated into themselves. 

“But it is okay: today was my turn, tomorrow would be theirs, first come, first served, Our Kommando patriotism never goes beyond the bounds of sport.” 

When picking up the cauldrons of soup for his Kommando, Tadek surreptitiously switches a half-empty cauldron for a full one. He describes this as almost a game, a give-and-take in which his Kommando might win out today but lose tomorrow. In this story, Tadek is a supervisor who is well-fed enough to give away his extra bowls of soup. The struggle for food is life-or-death, and the behavior of the camp inmates (such as Ivan and Becker) suggests that the distribution of food is always serious.

“What a curious power words have…Here in Auschwitz even evil words seem to materialize.” 

When Tadek tells Becker that he heard a selection is happening, it’s a fabrication to scare him. When the selection actually does happen, Tadek feels responsible. Even though it is a coincidence, he realizes that in Auschwitz, where the worst happens every day, speaking about it or predicting it seems like willing it to happen. Although it’s not Tadek’s fault, he feels guilty, as if wishing caused the selection to happen. 

“Between two throw-ins in a soccer game, right behind my back, three thousand people had been put to death.” 

The presence of the soccer field in the camp seems like a touch of civilization, a diversion that allows the inmates to enjoy themselves. However, Tadek notices that it serves as a distraction from the death that is occurring all around them. As the constant stream of people walks from the train to the gas chamber, the inmates are playing soccer. This also keeps the prisoners occupied so they don’t start thinking about rebelling. 

“At one point a wild thought suddenly shot across my mind: I too would like to have a child with rose-colored cheeks and light blond hair. I laughed aloud at such a ridiculous notion and climbed up on the roof to lay the hot tar.” 

Tadek catches himself imagining the future, and his quick dismissal of the idea that he might one day have his own child shows that he does not believe that he will have a future outside of the camp. Because those who are incarcerated at the camp have no idea when or if they will be released, planning for life outside seems futile. 

“A man has only a limited number of ways in which he can express strong emotions or violent passions. He uses the same gestures as when what he feels is only petty and unimportant. He utters the same ordinary words.” 

Tadek explains the inadequacy of language in the face of the unimaginable deaths of the thousands of people who constantly walk by them. Ironically, because those who walk by are unaware that they are about to die, they see the camp inmates and take pity. They throw bread and their watches, not knowing that those things will be removed from them shortly. 

“I was, naturally, entirely unsuccessful, my serial number being over one million, whereas this place swarms with very ‘old numbers’ who look down their noses at million-plus fellows like me.”

The way Tadek talks about the social hierarchy according to serial numbers is tongue-in-cheek, but he describes how more time in the camp equals more respect and credibility. The prestige associated with the lower numbers is ironic, which Tadek highlights by sarcastically suggesting that he wishes he was incarcerated sooner. Those who survived from the early days demonstrated an extraordinary amount of will, determination, and luck.

“And that is why my letters are not sad. I have kept my spirit and I know that you have not lost yours either.” 

Tadek’s positive description of the camp seems sarcastic, but his upbeat tone is also an act of love for his girlfriend; he hopes that she will feel happy if she believes that he is all right. 

“But, being a German, he fails to distinguish between reality and illusion, and is inclined to take words at their face value as if they always represented the truth.” 

Tadek says this of the orderly who oversees the medical trainees, but it is an indictment of all of Germany. While the government commits atrocities and systematically murders people across Europe, Tadek suggests that the Germans simply accept what they’re told rather than questioning or taking a stand.

“Except that I probably would not have said these things to you, even if I had known what I know today. I would not have wanted to spoil our mood.” 

Tadek remembers dancing with his girlfriend when they were still free, knowing that if he predicted the Holocaust then, he would have sounded insane. He also concedes that he never would have mentioned it, because he would rather have and preserve those memories than to ruin them. Tadek is saying that he will accept this time in the camp because he had the time with her.

“But a bread ration that is not sufficient to keep you alive—is a mockery. Work, during which you are not allowed to speak up, to sit down, to rest, is a mockery. And every half empty shovelful of earth that we toss on to the embankment is a mockery. Look carefully at everything around you, and conserve your strength. For a day may come when it will be up to us to give an account of the fraud and mockery to the living—to speak up for the dead.” 

The conditions under which they live and work in the camp are not just poor. They are, as Tadek states, a mockery. They receive bread, but it’s too little. They work, but aren’t allowed to rest. They are given just a taste, but not enough to live. Tadek plans that he and his girlfriend will survive, encouraging her to stay alive because someone will need to stand up and discuss the way they were treated and to speak for those who died. This is an optimistic (if bitter) statement.

“Do you really think that, without the hope that such a world is possible, that the rights of man will be restored again, we could stand the concentration camp even for one day?” 

Tadek argues that the only reason they comply in the camp is that they believe that it will not last forever. From a perspective that looks back on history, we know that if those in the camp can only survive a few years, they will eventually be freed. In the moment, Tadek has no reason to believe that it will ever end or that he will survive. If they truly believed that this was how they would spend the remainder of their lives, they would give up entirely. This gives new meaning to the title of the story, suggesting that Auschwitz is their home now and this incarceration will not end. 

“We were never taught how to give up hope, and this is why today we perish in the gas chambers.”

Tadek suggests that hope for freedom and the future is what keeps them docile. If they rebel or rise up, they will most likely die. However, complicity is also what makes it easy to send them to the gas chambers to die. Fighting back means that they would almost certainly die, but that would be worth the risk if they knew that they would eventually die in the camp. However, hope is a liability that forces them to stay in line.

“There can be no beauty if it is paid for by human injustice, nor truth that passes over injustice in silence, nor moral virtue that condones it.” 

Tadek realizes that many of the great achievements of man, such as the pyramids, were built by slave labor. Therefore, those achievements are not achievements at all, but testaments to cruelty and injustice. There cannot be a great society that rests on the backs of slavery and injustice. This is a sentiment that echoes throughout history and across many continents and civilizations.

“I think that even if I was being led to the oven, I would still believe that something would surely happen along the way. Holding a package would be a little like holding somebody’s hand, you see.”

Tadek doesn’t understand why the Schreiber, who is never named, holds onto his belongings while he is headed toward certain death. As the doctor explains, this is a natural response. Giving away his belongings means accepting his death. The Schreiber, who got his job because he had important friends, was privileged in the camp until he became ill. Even though he goes to the gas chamber with a truck full of other people, he is still alone. The package, which is taken from him before he gets on the truck, is his last bit of hope that he might live.

“I know, of course, that after what you have gone through and after what you have seen, you must feel a deep hate for your tormentors. But we, the soldiers of America, and you, the people of Europe, have fought so that the law should prevail over lawlessness.” 

The American soldier shows that he has no understanding of what it meant to live in the camps. Those who were imprisoned fought for their lives, not for lofty ideals of laws over lawlessness. They have been abandoned for years to suffer and die in a system that was legal and created by the government. It is not surprising that they do not trust the legal justice system and instead decide to take matters into their own hands.

“[T]he whole world is really like the concentration camp; the weak work for the strong, and if they have no strength or will to work—then let them steal, or let them die.” 

After the camps are liberated, Tadek and his fellow former prisoners have lost all faith in the ideas of humanity, sacrifice, and fairness. The camp is a microcosm for the injustice of the world, which they assert is not ruled by laws or fairness, but by power and oppression. 

“In German cities the store windows are filled with books and religious objects, but the smoke from the crematoria still hovers above the forests…” 

Tadek points out the hypocrisy of claiming morals and religion in Germany after the Holocaust. The camps are only newly liberated, and millions of people were only recently murdered, their bodies burned, and yet the citizens of Germany are proceeding with their lives as if they have no culpability in what happened. Tadek shows that there will never be justice enough because so many people were tacitly complicit through silence or indifference, and those people will never be held responsible.

“A certain young poet, a symbolic-realist, says with flippant sarcasm that I have concentration-camp mentality.”

Tadek writes stories about his time in the camp, and although he writes in the first person, he expresses that he feels distanced from those experiences. “Concentration-camp mentality” seems like a coping mechanism for trauma sustained over a long period of time. It's also disorienting to feel as if something so enormous that happened to him wasn’t his own experience.