Levi

'On his right is the Blockältedter, on his left, the quartermaster of the hut. Each one of us, as he comes naked out of the Tagesraum into the cold October air, has to run the few steps between the two doors, give the card to the SS man and enter the dormitory door. The SS man, in the fraction of a second between two successive crossings, with a glance at one's back and front, judges everyone's fate, and in turn gives the card to the man on his right or his left, and this is the life or death of each of us. In three or four minutes a hut of two hundred men is "done", as is the whole camp of twelve thousand men in the course of the afternoon. Right means survival, left means the gas chambers. Is there not something properly comic in this, the ridiculous spectacle of trying to appear strong and healthy, to attract for a brief moment the indifferent gaze of the Nazi administrator who presides over life and death? Here, comedy and horror coincide: imagine the prisoners practicing their appearance, trying to hold their heads high and push their chests forward, walking briskly, pinching their lips to appear less pale, exchanging advice on how to impress the SS man; imagine how a simple momentary confusion of cards or a lack of attention of the SS man can decide their fate...'

Primo Levi