This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

Tadeusz Borowski asserted that “it is impossible to write about Auschwitz impersonally” (22), so although not every story in the collection is autobiographical, he tells each narrative in the first person and in his own voice. Therefore, Tadek does not necessarily have narrative continuity, but his voice is the same. In fact, Borowski only names the narrator in “A Day at Harmenz,” which is not autobiographical. Tadek is a Polish political prisoner, and therefore gives a specific narrative of life in a concentration camp that differs from those given by Jewish prisoners, as he is not part of the population that is being systematically destroyed. Tadek’s response to the horrors around him is often desensitized. In the first story, when Tadek is emptying the freight trains that deliver Jewish people to the camp, he is initially repulsed and horrified. As he becomes more overwhelmed, Tadek becomes irrationally angry at the Jewish prisoners, as if their existence is the reason that he must endure this horror.

However, Tadek’s reaction in the first story is the most emotional revulsion he demonstrates in the collection. He offers an honest and ugly portrayal of life in the camps, in which desperation to live causes people to commit desperate acts, such as rejecting one’s own children and other family, stealing food from others who are starving, and cannibalism.