Start of a journey to the abyss

Chapter 1: The Journey
The first chapter of this book reveals much of the true picture of Jewish imprisonment to the concentration camps established by the Nazis. Especially since the book is primarily a first-hand account, it is likely that the author shows a lot of the general feelings that most Jews had when they were sent to the concentration camps, not just the facts of the process of the imprisonment. Most of these feelings were expressed as despair and hopelessness in the first chapter, as they were being sent to the camps on trains.
In the first chapter, I read about the frequently mentioned cruelties of the holocaust, including the disregarding of the German SS soldiers of Jews as humans. A quote in the book says, “Only a profound amazement: how can one hit a man without anger?” I was not surprised by the fact that the Nazi’s severely degraded the Jews’ statuses as humans, but only sickened again by this fact, which I have known for quite a while. I learned that atrocities like those of the Nazis on Jews cannot be easily forgotten or disregarded.
However, one idea that I haven’t known surprised me: that some Jews like Primo Levi knew that they will be captured on a specific day, and that they needed to prepare for the adversities they will face. Some of them “praying, some deliberately drunk, others lustfully intoxicated for the last time.” To me, it seems like they were preparing for death, doing anything they can to enjoy the last bit of free life left. The book says, “Dawn came on us like a betrayer.” I thought that it would have been very menacing to see the sun rise for the day that they will be captured and be used as slaves, tools, and eventually killed relentlessly. It was also ironical, since sunrise usually represents a new, bright, and hopeful start, usually with an optimistic tone, yet the sunrise the Jews in the book saw was the beginning of their doom.
The author’s detailed and vivid descriptions allow me to more deeply understand the mind state of the people in the camps, and picture the holocaust in general, since I can be clearly informed about the details of it. Hopefully I can grow more mature and not only be shocked or stunned by the extreme aspects of it.