Dehumanization: An Extension of Death of Self
Throughout Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz: If This is a Man, dehumanization of prisoners is constant and recurring. The entire process begins even before entering the camp. Prisoner of war are shipped to the death camps using trail cars designed for livestock and pack them so tightly that one cannot move or breathe. Upon arrival, they are stripped of all their worldly possessions, including clothing and the first selection ensues. Assuming one makes it through these selections they are then herded into small rooms where they stand hours on end, naked, awaiting what may come next. I fail to see any reason for the wait other than to degrade the new inmates. Next, they are given a tattoo, no longer are they known by name, instead they are but a number. The clothing they are given hardly constitutes being called such. They are rags that have absorbed the torment of many a prisoner before them. Finally, they are given a bunk, barely big enough for one, though two must occupy it. Nearly every aspect of the death camps aimed in someway to dehumanize the unfortunate souls unlucky enough to call this home.
It is hard to imagine the reasons for any of this. The only thing I can think of is that, for those in charge, dehumanizing these people must make it much easier to kill them. By altering the way in which these people live, they are able to create their own misconceptions of the whole and make it easier to exterminate them. However, any time a prisoner expresses some human characteristic such as knowledge or trade, those in charge fail to see it as such. Levi is very knowledgeable in the field of chemistry and, upon speaking to a German chemist, he is able to speak on equal terms, but in the eyes of the German chemist and all Germans alike, he is still an inferior being.
Dehumanization of PoW’s is not limited to the past. Today, even the most powerful country, the United States, is under fire for its treatment of prisoners. In Guantanamo Bay, Cuba prisoners are mistreated and dehumanized. The act of be transferred to the prison, like those being transferred to death camps, is torture in itself. In Treatment of Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay Cuba Exposes America it tells of men being cut off from all external stimuli. They are blindfolded and blocked from scent, and noise with wrists bound and hand sheathed. To me this seems cruel and unusual because I fail to see the benefit of transport in this way. Torture can also be found within the walls of this compound.
The treatment of prisoners of war over time I think has morphed from predominantly physical torture, (i.e. that of the concentration camps and the vast amount of work required under atrocious living conditions), to torture based more on humiliation. Unfortunately, it seems that the most prominent example of this happens to be the treatment of Iraqi POWs in the prison at Abu Ghraib. The prisoners here were made to act like animals or endure torture completely nude, while the soldiers keeping guard there laughed and took pictures (which eventually led to them being leaked to the rest of the world). Although those at Gitmo aren’t necessarily being humiliated, their sense of humanity at the most basic level, that of the senses, has been stripped of them by the efforts of the US military. It seems horrible that these efforts are necessary, but then again, I have not been trained in military strategy nor have I witnessed to horrors of war.
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The comment post « We make war that we may live in peace. said this on October 31, 2009 at 9:55 am |