Everyone carried his or her precious possession because "you cannot leave what is precious to you when you go away," according to the saying "People who had gold carried it along for they alleged that it may be valuable."
This quote embodies uncertainty because everyone carries their most prized possession because they are unsure of what the trip may bring. This is where the trip into Auschwitz begins. It also gives an account of the difficulties Delbo faces while incarcerated. The women in Delbo convoy had no idea on where they were heading to and therefore they were forced to carry their belongings with the hope that it would assist them later during their struggle for resistance in the prison. They were able to take courage in their hands and ready to face any uncertainty that would come along their way. In the camps, the inmates were not only facing hell but also they were living it (Charlotte, 6).
This was during capturing of the French resistant members who were not for the humanity service order of those days. Though their journey was filled up with ups and downs with a lot of oppression which would also lead to death, they never wanted to leave any of their belongings including their children. They were having the hope that one day they would emerge the winners.
The quote shows the experiences of the resistant movement members in the camps with the hope of connecting with the future generation. The author is explaining the state of prisoners in their Auschwitz world. Amidst constant cruelty, the livelihood of prisoners had been silenced. The silence being depicted here in the prisons was not only an external blackout of sound and freedom of speech but also the prisoner’s internal emptiness of their feeling (Charlotte, 7). Struggle and suffering of members of resistant movement were undergoing during that time.
‘’And when the warriors yell to them to them to line up by fives, males on one side, ladies and kids on the other, in a dialect they do not comprehend, they comprehend the knockbacks of the sticks and line up by fives ever since they are prepared for everything.’’
In the prison the resistant’s were grouped into gender and age. The living places for both male and female were different. Despite having such different living environments, inmates were treated uniformly across all genders. For the detained political prisoners, the police and government did not make any different in the ways of treating them. Men and women in the holocaust were treated the same. The police camps were set to destroy anyone who interfered with the Nazi movement and the Jews. The inmates being in their country, were receiving an equal amount of anguish and cruelty (Charlotte, 7). They felt that the Jews were subhuman and their motive was not humanity change for a better treatment but ruin the world.
Delbo is describing her hunger and even more terrible, the full days enduring the beatings and standing in the snow and the endless parade of the skeletal corpses. The denial of humanity in the prisons as portrayed through constant death, suffering and everlasting subordination makes readers get envisioned on what universal concentration entails would be like. Through this quote, Delbo brings a humanity though the familiar scenes of inhumanity as she vividly renders her comrades through eschews philosophical musings of other holocaust literature through narration of her daily life intimate account in the prison camps (Charlotte,9). The French resistance are so much oppressed in the prisons and they are trying to survive through their struggle but at the end by returning Delbo and her fellow resistant member’s triumph over their oppressors.
‘’We detained behind our spiky wire, we were capable to count on Hitler’s ensuing downfall. For us it was inevitability. Expectation gave us the determination to hang on. We did not see for how long we were going to bear victory occasionally seemed so far away that we dreaded we would not live long to see it alas turned out as most of us had expected-:but our faith persisted. Hitler will be crumpled, we will push through.’’
‘We’ implies the prisoners and French resistant’s. The narrator is giving hope to their victory which seems to be far from what they were expecting. Despite the oppression the resistant members are facing, emerging victorious is their goal. The resistant movement members are on the believe and hoping that once they are going to defeat Hitler as well as his army, live to them would be better off.
The narrator is remembering the humanity which has been extinguished by death camps and hopes that one day, the resistant movement members, the whole nation as well as her, would survive to tell all what had endured. It is as a result of highly being oppressed in the camps.
Being a Non-Jew who was sent to Auschwitz as a result of being a member of the French resistant movement she is recalling her companions which are interweaving her experiences with the suffering of other (Charlotte, 4). She depicts the dignity and decency in the face of inhumanity in the camps. It is here where she looks forward with lots of optimism that one day actual acts of humanity will be the order. She laments that, it will not be until the government of the day, Hitler as well as his army would be out of power, that the right service to humanity will be achieved.
‘’In the encampment, one would never pretend, never take sanctuary in the thought. I recall Yvonne Picard, a dawn when we were carrying blocks from a wreaker’s yard. We carried two blocks at a period, one from a heap to another heap. We were moving flank by flank, our blocks squeezed to our torsos, blocks we had pried from a heap concealed with ice, rasping our hands. Those blocks were weighty, and got weightier as time wore on’’.
The narrator depicts the oppression that was being experienced in the concentrated camps. The prisoners were not allowed to have rest from the heavy duties they were mandated to do. There were not allowed to have excuses in order to be freed from their daily work. Despite being tired of the hard labor, the narrators shows that the oppressors were not having mercy to the prisoners. They would work until their hands change color.
This is the reality which was being experienced in Auschiwiz, the fatigue, suffering the cold which was to the extreme. The suffering of the prisoners was to the extreme that there was no energy left even for a little pretense.
To keep the narrator live, preserve her memory and to remain herself on the atrocities that they were experiencing in the camps she would recite poems and or tell them about novels as they went in digging mission (Charlotte, 5). Despite all this attempts, she was not successful even for an instant in nullifying the moments she was living through. Thinking and remembering of such painful experiences always under oppression in her attempts to have freedom makes the narrator hopeful that one day their efforts would be successful.
In the quotes, the experiences in the camps forced prisoner’s attention to such basic things as defecation, eating, cold, fear, thirst, resignation and thirst. In sensing the minutiae of existence, the narrator brings what the oppressors take for granted as their tight into question. This creates great suffering to the resistant members though they struggle to survive all he hardships with the hope one day, freedom would be achieved.
Cited works
Charlotte, D. None of us will return: Grove press, 1968.
Charlotte, D. Days and memory: Northwestern University press, 2001.
