Physical survival during the holocaust involved making it out alive from any situation. This act was an extremely basic idea but making it out alive would often be more difficult than it sounded. This pattern follows in this quote by Wiesel, “Remember it always, let it be graven in your memories. You are in Auschwitz. And Auschwitz is not a convalescent home. It is a concentration camp. Here, you must work. If you don't you will go straight to the chimney. To the crematorium. Work or crematorium—the choice is yours" (38-39). The act of working was a simple one. The reality of the whole situation was that many things could keep someone from working. There was injury, starvation, and straight physical inability to do the job. In order for someone to survive they must have these physical survival qualities covered. It was rampant for starvation and hunger to be a problem. People would go to great lengths to try and fulfill their hunger. “Two cauldrons of soup! Smack in the middle of the road, two cauldrons of soup with no one to guard them! A royal feast going to waste! Supreme temptation! Hundreds of eyes were looking at them, shining with desire. Two lambs with hundreds of wolves lying in wait for them. Two lambs without a shepherd, free for the taking. But who would dare?” (Wiesel 59). In this quote Wiesel was describing every Jew when they were huddled together in the blocks. …show more content…
Without the mental strength to survive a person was as good as dead during the Holocaust. Overcoming stresses that involved the reality of the situation that Elie was within allowed him to push himself to very end to make it out alive. It wasn’t an easy thing to do but it was done. Elie even subconsciously shows he wants to live. This is shown as Elie prepared to kill himself as they were funneling in to one of the original camps. “I gathered all that was left of my strength, so that I could break from the ranks and throw myself upon the barbed wire” (Wiesel 31). He would not end up killing himself. It was a passing thought motivated by the stress around him. It was a though thought and it had to be overcome by the basic human mentality that he wanted to live. This mental will to live was also seen as the camp was to be evacuated and all the prisoners had to run. Elie says, “We were the masters of nature, the masters of the world. We had transcended everything—death, fatigue, our natural needs. We were stronger than cold and hunger, stronger than the guns and the desire to die, doomed and rootless, nothing but numbers, we were the only men on earth” (87). The will to live continued to motivate him to survive this torturous ordeal of running for over twenty kilometers straight. It motivated him to outlast death, fatigue, and his natural needs. His ability to survive the Holocaust