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Chapter 5, Our Nights
Summary
After twenty days in the infirmary, his leg nearly healed, Levi faces starting life over in the camp. Everything was taken from him, from his clothes, shoes, and spoon to his place in Block 30 and work assignment. The Ka-Be staff discharges Levi to a new placement in Block 45. Levi is nervous about the reassignment but takes heart when he realizes his compatriot and friend Alberto is part of the block. Levi admires Alberto’s natural gifts of intelligence and intuition that fit him to navigate the prison system. Alberto has kept his integrity while becoming everyone’s friend.
Levi describes the nights in the block after the evening ration has been distributed and before the light is turned off. A block mate named Engineer Kardos offers his services of soothing foot problems for a slice of bread. A story-teller sings songs about life in the Lager in Yiddish and people tip him with a pinch of tobacco or thread. The last ceremony of the day is the replacement of shoes for the first ten claimants to the exchange. Then the lights are turned off and there is nothing to do but go to bed.
Night brings little rest to Levi. The men sleep two to a bunk, back to back, their feet next to the other’s head. Levi often finds himself on the wooden edge of the cramped straw bed with no room to maneuver. He dreams of being home with his family, who are not interested in his stories of the camp. Levi has confided the dream to Alberto, who tells him all his fellow internees dream that dream. Throughout the block can be heard the sounds of people dreaming of food, chewing unconsciously, all night long. Every three hours their full bladders must be emptied of the watery soup that is the mainstay of their diet. The night-guard monitors the level in the two-gallon bucket and decides who will carry it outside to empty in the latrine. This happens twenty times a night.
Even with all the discomforts of his restless nights, Levi anticipates the reveille, the long waking bell, with terror, and the moment when the night-guard switches on the light and announces quietly, “Get up.” A frenzy of activity erupts as 150 men dress and make the beds, jostle for the washroom, and head for the bread line within ten minutes.
Analysis
The prison camp is a revolving door of transfers, new internees, and deaths. Levi has not made contacts who could provide him with favors, a fact made harrowing by having to start over again in a new block. He fears the unknown hostility that he will encounter, particularly as he has only rudimentary vocabulary to decipher the German commands shouted at him. Small and slight in stature, Levi is at a disadvantage.
In Alberto, Levi identifies the street smart, savvy individual, who not only survives but thrives in Auschwitz. Thrown into the bizarre, treacherous world of the concentration camp, Alberto shows a maturity beyond his twenty-two years. Although Italian is his first language, Alberto has emotional intelligence, the facility for communicating with people. Communicators such as Engineer Kardos and the story-teller have also found a way to keep a semblance of humanity in the camp. Even though they share their gifts out of self-interest, these negotiations are the bedrock of civilized society, a social contract between equals.
Levi’s recurring dream torments him with alternating joy at being reunited with his family and anguish at being rejected by their indifference to his ordeal. The fear that no one would want to hear the prisoners’ stories haunts the men, like a second loss of themselves on returning to society. Their sense of self-worth was erased along with their identities.
The nighttime gauntlet of relieving themselves of the soup on which they barely subsist presents another barrier to getting good rest. Their diet of bread and watery soup cannot maintain muscle mass or the tissues of their internal organs with the hard labor they do every day. Constantly hungry, their minds continue to think of food all night long. It is this daily struggle with hunger and exhaustion which Levi anticipates with horror each day.
