Berlin Diaries Vs Survival In Auschwitz Essay

Berlin Diaries Vs. Survival In Auschwitz Essay, Research Paper Berlin Diaries V. Survival in Auschwitz The two books Berlin Diaries by Marie Vassiltchikov and Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi both chronicle World War II from two different positions. They are both personal histories from each writer # 8217 ; s existent experiences. The two books have different formats, points, facts, and actualities. For illustration, Berlin Diaries is in existent diary format, and Survival in Auschwitz is in narrative format. I found that Berlin Diaries was harder to read because of the format, where Survival in Auschwitz was easier to follow. Besides both narratives were taken from two really different points of position. Marie Vassiltchikov was a Russian blue blood that fled Russia and was seeking safety in Germany. Primo Levi was an Italian Jew who was captured by the Nazis and taken to a concentration cantonment. Vassiltchikov was free, she lived a restricted life, but she still had her freedom. Levi was a captive ; he lived a prisoner slave life and had no autonomies or freedoms. This difference seems to be the most eventful. They led such different lives. Levi was the absolute curse of the Nazi being, as they were to him. In contrast, Vassiltchikov really worked for the Nazis ; granted to hold the freedom that she did, that # 8217 ; s where she had to work. But still, Vassiltchikov had freedom, how much more different could one get from being a Judaic captive in a Nazi concentration cantonment, as Levi was. There are so many points to this major contrast that it about encompasses the full construct of comparing and contrasting he two. While there could non be anything more opposite than holding freedom and being a captive, there were still other differences that had no respect to Vassiltchikov and Levi # 8217 ; s existent life conditions. Missy ( Vassiltchikov ) originally was flying the Russian ground forces. They would hold killed her for being an blue blood. Primo # 8217 ; s danger was ever from the Nazis. His Judaic # 8220 ; race # 8221 ; was his grade of decease. As mentioned above, Missy was a Russian blue blood ; Primo was from the working category of Italy. Generally their demographic backgrounds could non acquire much different either. Religion was besides a major and blinding difference. Besides as mentioned above Primo was a Jew and Missy was Christian. This difference is what separated them further in Missy # 8217 ; s freedom and Primo # 8217 ; s imprisonment. Another difference that played a immense function in each book was the existent placing of each narrative. Missy wrote her journals as she traveled through out Germany and Europe. She experienced bombardment, metropoliss being destroyed and the existent war right in forepart of her. Primo on the other manus, may hold been right in the center of the war # 8217 ; s causes, but he neer saw the combat and the bombs like Missy did. Girl may hold had freedom, but she was out in the center of the battleground. It is a difficult realisation to hold that Primo could be in a immense Nazi labour cantonment and non of all time truly experience World War II from the existent war position. He was the war, but neer truly saw it. He lived a war but it was a different war ; his was internal, unsafe and merely as life threatening as being on the forepart lines, but it was about like all the other combat was non-existent to his day-to-day conflict of life. Another enormous difference was the format of each book. Berlin Diaries was merely that, a diary. Missy wrote what was go oning as it was go oning. She had no clip to reflect on her experiences, she merely took history for things as they happened. Survival in Auschwitz was written in retrospect to the war. Primo wrote it as a memoir and had old ages to reflect on his experiences. He wrote it to read like a narrative. One can follow his day-to-day life and acquire a image of what this snake pit on Earth called Auschwi tz was truly similar. It gives a graphic history of what life, as a Judaic captive in a Nazi labour cantonment, would be like. Berlin Diaries, since it was a diary, makes it harder to acquire that image of life. Missy is frequently concerned with her ideas and personal life while she is right in the center of acquiring bombed. It might look really petty at times, but those bombs were her life. She was non seeking to do a narrative out of it. She was merely composing how she lived. If one were to populate in the center of the battleground during a war, one would still populate their life. She could non hold realized at the clip that she was right in the center of something that was altering the universe as she knew it. How could anyone cognize that what is go oning to him or her right now is history? To them, it is merely their life. If Primo were to compose Survival in Auschwitz as it were go oning, the book would be wholly different. The differences between these two books that are about the same war have many differences ; nevertheless they have some analogues and similarities every bit good. The first major similarity is that they are about the same war. They have the same causes and the same factors set uping the same period in clip. The Nazis are present in both books, and are viewed negatively in both. Their lives were drastically changed by the same war. They may hold been in different state of affairss, but the same grounds put them in those state of affairss. They were from such different backgrounds, but brought down by the same thing. Everything was comparative. Both Primo and Missy were populating out of necessity ; they had nil of their former lives. Their personal properties and loved 1s were gone. Their lives were brought down to desolation and bare endurance. They were missing the agencies to populate as they had ever known. They had no control over their environment or how they lived. They struggled to populate each twenty-four hours. One major analogue for them was nutrient. They were both hungering, Primo was hungering as a signifier of anguish, and Missy was merely being badly rationed ; but none the lupus erythematosus they were both hungering. Both of them wrote about nutrient invariably, they obsessed over it. Food or any sort of nutriment was the chief concern of both Missy and Primo # 8217 ; s lives. Besides they both lived each twenty-four hours in fright of their lives. Primo was in changeless fright of acquiring selected to travel to the gas chamber or merely death of famishment. Missy feared acquiring caught by the Soviet ground forces, acquiring killed by bombing and the Nazis. She was involved in some things that if she were caught, she would decidedly be killed. Both Missy and Primo spent their lives in changeless passage from one life agreement to another every bit good. Primo was ever being shifted from one barracks to another to the infirmary to another barracks. Missy was ever go forthing one little flat to another bantam flat, from metropolis to metropolis. They both had to cover with holding no place, no individuality and no topographic point of comfort. While everything that happened to Primo may hold been a signifier of anguish inflicted on him by the Nazis, and Missy # 8217 ; s desolation was merely due to the war ramping along, both still suffered. As one can see, these two books about World War II can be looked at on different degrees of comparing and contrast. It may look at first that they are merely similar on the surface, but one time one looks deeper into each narrative they have a figure of similarities. They have analogues on every degree of human life and endurance when faced with despair and desolation. To look at World War II through these two positions gives the reader a much more accurate and realistic image of the war than any history book of all time could. Both Survival in Auschwitz and Berlin Diaries give a complete existent life sense to a war that can frequently look unreal or incredible in modern times.