Body and Soul

As Levi states, on page 53, “Conceiving and organizing the squads was National Socialism’s most demonic crime.” The squads he is referring to here are those that were referred to as the Special Squads. These Special Squads were predominately Jewish people who were in charge of maintaining order among arrivals, removing corpses from the gas chambers, cutting women’s hair, pulling gold teeth, sorting and classifying clothes and luggage. The fact that these people were being forced to inadvertently have a hand in the death of others is terrifying. As Levi says on page 52, “One is stunned by this paroxysm of perfidy and hatred: it must be the Jews who put the Jews into ovens ; it must be shown that the Jews, the subrace, the submen, bow to any and all humiliation even to destroying themselves. It is horrifying to see this extent of Nazi terror imposed upon people inside of the concentration camps. To force a Jewish person to destroy another Jewish person is one of the most humiliating orders Hitler’s regime could give. The Nazis were trying to break every person who was put into the concentration camps. The Nazis were not ‘merely’ content with physically destroying people; no they had to destroy their souls as well. One of the most vivid quotes in this chapter was what Levi deemed to be the message of the squads. He quoted the message as being, “We, the master race are your destroyers, but you are no better than we are; if we so wish, and we do so wish, we can destroy not only your bodies but also your souls, just as we have destroyed ours.” This quotation speaks miles in terms of outlining the purpose of the Nazi creation of the special squads. Again it speaks to the Nazi’s complete and utter absolute power over these people. So great was it that they could, and did destroy both body and soul of these victims.