Shoes (Symbol)
Shoes are mentioned a great deal in the book and this is because they were used as a symbol of a person's position or identity in the camp. Jewish prisoners were not allowed leather shoes and had to wear unwieldy wooden ones. The shoes they were wearing therefore symbolized their religious and ethnic identity without anyone having to look at their number or ask a name. The men at the camp who were criminals, but not Jewish, were allowed to wear leather shoes. This division between those who wore leather shoes and those who wore wooden ones symbolizes the German classification of Jews and non-Jews. In other words, the shoes are a symbol of one's designated humanity in the camps.
Number Tattoo (Symbol)
Each of the prisoners at every Nazi death camp was given a number which was tattooed on the arm. The numbers symbolized a great deal both to the Germans and also to the other prisoners. A person's number signified which group he or she came in with, and therefore symbolized geographical ethnicity. For example, there was a set of numbers for the Italians, another for the Greeks, and another for the Hungarians. This could dictate the way others treated the prisoner. For example, Alex (the Kappo for the Chemical Kommando) disliked Levi partly due to Levi being an Italian Jew. The numbers also indicated the length of a prisoner's stay at the camp, and therefore, his or her survival instinct. Higher numbers corresponded to more recent internment. A low number suggested a person's ability to survive, given that they had been at the camp for a longer period of time. After the camps were liberated, the tattoos became a symbol of both persecution and survival.
SS Officer's eiderdown (Symbol)
After the Germans flee from the camp, Levi goes to the German officers' accommodations and finds supplies and goods, including a rather comfortable and fluffy duck-feather eiderdown (comforter). He kept this with him, and after the war, took it back to his home in Turin where it stayed in his guest bedroom until the day he died. The eiderdown was a symbol of Levi's survival as well as of the German defeat. As a luxurious item, this would only have belonged to a German officer inside the camps. But after the order of the camps fell apart and the prisoners were liberated, Levi's possession of such an object is a reminder of the falseness of the Nazi's logic and the hierarchy they created.
Men as Animals (Motif)
Throughout the book, the Germans dehumanize their prisoners and treat them as animals. The men in Levi's camp (including Levi himself) are reduced to their most primal state, concerned only with survival. The rations are not enough to sustain them considering the degree to which they were forced to work. In order to survive, the prisoners have to resort to what would be considered immoral and animal-like behavior. Levi calls the camps a social and biological experiment in which the prisoners were forced to recognize that it was a survival-of-the-fittest situation. Every man was mostly out for himself. In certain moments, however, Levi was reminded of his humanity. This led to suffering because no sane person could withstand the abuses, which were not only physical, but also led to "internal annihilation."
The Snow (Symbol)
For most of the book, snow symbolizes extreme suffering, exposure, and likely death. The winter is a time of dread for the prisoners, as they are forced to work outdoors in sub-zero conditions without proper clothing and adequate food rations. Rations are even more diminished as the Russians approached and it got harder to transport supplies. Hard manual labor is more miserable in the snow, but Levi is protected from this when he is selected to work in the chemical laboratory. There, he stays warm and dry.
In the ten days between the departure of the Germans and the arrival of the Russians, the symbolism of the snow shifts to something desirable. As the bodies begin to pile up and supplies dwindle, Levi and all those who remain in the camp hope that the snow does not melt. This would lead to a rampant spread of disease as well as a lack of water.
