Levi Vs. Survival In Auschwitz By Primo Levi

Identity is the unique characteristics, beliefs, and personality traits of an individual that distinguish them from others. Some aspects of identity are chosen, such as clothing or where you live, while others are out of your control, such as skin color or country of origin. Every identity has a multitude of different facets that all come together to form a single person. In psychology, there are two main types of personality tests: typology tests and trait tests. Typology tests have been proven time and time again to be inaccurate in comparison to trait tests because they categorize peoples’ personalities into simple dichotomous splits, meaning you either are or you aren’t something, no in between. Trait tests, on the other hand, show to what

My number is 174517; we have been baptized, we will carry the tattoo on our left arm until we die.” No matter how Levi identified previous to this, all he was seen as now was a Jew, and therefore a prisoner. A baptism in Christian faith symbolizes the death of an old life and the beginning of a new life. In a much more morbid sense, this use of the word baptism is a symbol of the death of who the prisoners were before, and the beginning of their lives as an unjustly tortured criminal. Later in the text, Levi says, “‘Warum?’ I asked him in my poor German. ‘Hier ist kein warum’ (there is no why here), [the guard] replied, pushing me inside with a shove.” The guard’s abrupt answer demonstrates the complete lack of humanity shown to the prisoners in concentration camps. The Nazis believed the Jews to be inferior to them, labeling them all as “bad” and therefore preventing themselves from making any personal connections with them. Because it was not personal, they were able to treat prisoners as subhuman without their consciences weighing on them. Even outside of concentration camps, people were discriminated against for being Jewish. Ruth Kluger explains that whenever she left her house she “wore a Judenstern to alert other pedestrians that [she] wasn't really white,” because to the Nazis her religion outshone her physical appearance. Though her family was not very religious, only participating in high holidays, their religion was the only thing others saw. Kluger writes, “Now that my tentative faith in my homeland was being damaged by daily increments beyond repair, I became Jewish in defense.” Her identity was forced to shift from one of patriotism and love for her country to her religion that she knew little about. Describing the wall built between Aryans and Jews, Kluger writes that “The girl had asserted the superiority of her Germanic forefathers as opposed to the vermin race I