Manipulation

Levi establishes that the most demonic crime the Nazi’s commit is being able to manipulate Jews to serve in the Special Squad. Instead of taking the typical approach and stating that the mass murdering is the worst crime commit, he chooses a different route. Levi says that the Nazi party attempted to shift the burden of guilt onto the victims instead of themselves, the killers. Therefore the Nazi party could say “it must be the Jews who put the Jews into the ovens; it must be shown that the Jews, the subrace, the submen, bow to any and all humiliation, even to destroying themselves” (52). Not only did the Jews participate in the extermination of their own people, but other prisoners (German, non-Jews, Russian, and Polish) as well joined in. These Special Squad members were kept away from the other prisoner, and received better treatment then the traditional prisoners despite the fact they were prisoners. Later on some made excuses saying they were not monsters it was either a life or death choice. That the special squad members were just as unhappy or unhappy than the traditional prisoner. Levi does not judge or blame the prisoners for choosing this path. He proposes “I would invite anyone who dares pass judgment to carry out upon himself, with sincerity, a conceptual experiment” (59). He goes on to explain the situation of living in a ghetto starving, fatigued, discriminated against, and continually humiliated. And they sanction you to be the special squad, telling you it is a better life. What would you do? I understand the reasons why Levi choose the manipulation of certain prisoner to go against their own people. Yet, I do not agree that the prisoners who were choose to be a part of the Special Squad did was morally right. Some prisoners did rebel, while others conformed. Although I do not agree that what they did was morally right, I did not experience the situation. I know that humans naturally conform, just as Milgram has demonstrated. And I also understand that we must do what we have to survive, and as people say desperate times come with desperate measures. However, it disgusts me to think that the Nazi’s were this persuasive.