The Drowned and the Saved

Upon arrival to the camps, every prisoner, no matter how young or old, received a tattoo of his or her registration number. Levi describes this process as “traumatic” (132) though it was not very painful; the trauma resulted from the dehumanizing impact of the tattoo, which declared the prisoner no longer worthy of a name, only a series of letters and numbers. As well, the tattoo was a visible representation of every prisoner’s status as an “other,” a status that predicted the destruction of prisoners who violated Hitler’s vision of a master race. Also difficult for some prisoners was the fact that the tattoo was a religious infraction. The Mosaic law forbids tattoos as they mark only barbarians, not Jews.

When they were deported, prisoners traveled to the Lagers by train in cars intended for moving livestock to market. For some prisoners, the journey lasted two weeks, and during this time, the prisoners were first introduced to the humiliating existence that awaited them at the camps. The cattle cars were simply empty metal boxes that lacked furnishings and lavatories, and they were usually overcrowded with people of all ages and states of health. The cattle cars provided for the prisoners represented their later dehumanization by other means, once imprisoned.