Throughout Borowski’s collection of short stories, “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” various characters have been deceived into their own executions. The thought of being led to one’s own death without even knowing is what went through the minds of many Jews during the Holocaust. These victims had no control or say in their fates and faced the judgment without any sympathy or remorse from their executers. Although the victim’s futures were for the most part condemned, as they got closer and closer to death, few never lost hope that some miraculous intercession could drastically change their fate for the …show more content…
The sizzling and the stench of the burning fat and the heat gushing out of the pit terrified her. She jerked back. The man pushed the woman into the flaming pit, and as she fell he heard her terrible, broken scream (96). If the young women would have not had her old, brittle mother by her side, she would have maybe saved her own life. Having to choice between having to save one’s self or family is the harsh reality of life during the days of the Holocaust.
The brutalities in the concentrations were extreme. The only way the Nazi’s could have the victims cooperate was to lie to them until the very end, leaving some people with not even the slightest of hope. Borowski’s voice narrates the atrocities and strict conditions that hope can make humanity summit to doing.
Even though the deception strategy was used on the victims of the Holocaust, they still didn’t lose hope ever still held on to the positive sides of the picture. “In Auschwitz, Our Home ( A Letter)”, the narrator states, “ It is that very hope that makes people go without a murmur to gas chambers, keeps them from risking a revolt, paralyses them into numb inactivity. It is hope that compels man to hold on to one more day of life, because that day may be the day of liberation” (Borowski 121). In other words, hope makes humans submit and do whatever they are told all because in the back of their mind, in a