SIX : The Work

The personal perspective always defines a day’s work. To some people, it might be 8 hours while some people consider it to be 6 hours. It depends on how the day is planned on how many hours one is able to work. But within the barbed wires of the concentration camps, work hours for a day is not defined subjectively but in a definite objective view. There are set times when a prisoners sleeps and wakes up, in between, apart from meals, there is only work to be done.

The Germans had always thought that Jews were inferior to themselves. Because this thought dominated most of the Germans, the Jews were treated as if slaves and physical labor.

When I went to work in Thailand, I was shocked at how difficult it was to perform physical labor in the sun. During our trip, we usually worked from 8 to 11:30, ate lunch and rested until 1:00 and then worked again until 3:30. The total is not even up to 8 hours a day. During those eight hours, occasionally on some days, my friends and me would some how find rest time just because of a little tiredness.

I felt sympathy for Primo Levi when he tried to avoid work by using the latrines. Although the level of seriousness is different, I am able to connect to how difficult it is to lift objects that are heavy and carry them to certain places. I felt pain moving more than 200 bricks. Levi should have felt more trying to carry objects exceeding over 100 pounds. This chapter made me connect particularly to physical labor and the pain it causes although the severe ness is too large to compare.