The Cold Hard Facts

It seems to me that one of the main differences between literature in the twentieth century and other periods of literature is that stories from the twentieth century are more realistic and out there. They deal more with the "flat-out truth". In the stories we have read before there seemed to be some kind of deeper meaning or point to the story, whereas in This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski, there is no point or lesson to be learned. We are just given the cold hard facts about what is happening. One of the quotes that stood out to me the most is when the narrator talks about deceiving people about the gas chambers. "It is the camp law: people going to their death must be deceived to the very end. This is the only permissible form of charity (Borowski 700)." This quote moved me because it makes lying to all of these people about the gas chambers a moral thing in the perverse system that they got going. Reading this story made me think about all the things that I have that I take for granted. These people were tortured physically and mentally for no reason at all. I couldnt imagine having to witness some of the things that these people did. The other thing in the story that moved me the most is when they talk about having to unload corpses. "I go back inside the train; I carry out dead infants; I unload luggage. I touch corpses, but I cannot overcome the mounting, uncontrollable terror (Borowski 705)." Knowing that people have lived through things like this makes my life seem very fortunate and every time I read something about the Holocaust it reminds me that I am very lucky.