The Truce

“It was that shame we knew so well, the shame that drowned us after the selections, and every time we had to watch, or submit to, some outrage.”

For the prisoners of Auschwitz, the dehumanizing effects of the camp invoke complex feelings of shame and illustrate The Impacts of Trauma. The prisoners have been brutalized by the Nazis and feels ashamed that they have been reduced to such a status, especially when they are then seen by Russian soldiers or local Polish people. They have internalized the shame and become traumatized, even though they are not at fault. This gestures toward the way in which trauma will shape their existence long after they have left the camp.

“Hurbinek, who was three years old and perhaps had been born in Auschwitz and had never seen a tree.”

The tragic story of Hurbinek illustrates the extreme horror of the Auschwitz camp. Levi and the other adults have memories of home, of a time before the camps, which they can draw upon to comfort them in difficult times. For youngsters like Hurbinek, Auschwitz is their only known form of existence. Children are born and die in a concentration camp, knowing nothing but torture for their entire lives. Levi illustrates this with a carefully-drawn example: Hurbinek may have lived and died without ever seeing a tree. Even something as mundanely pleasant as a tree is denied to these children.