This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

Jewish German theorist Hannah Arendt famously coined the phrase “the banality of evil” to describe the behavior of Adolf Eichmann, one of the major powers behind the Holocaust, at his trial. Eichmann claimed that he took part in perpetrating violence because he was following orders and obeying the law. The phrase refers to the way extraordinary acts of evil are perpetrated by ordinary people. In This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, Tadek observes the way average people, even his fellow inmates, become cruel when they are given power and have their cruelty enforced by others. In the title story, for instance, Henri is an average prisoner who is unaffected when taking part in the mass murder of the Jews who arrive in the freight cars—even when he sees people who were his friends in France. Tadek experiences how working on the train detail, even for a day, makes him feel angry and cruel.

In “Those Who Walked On,” Tadek sees and hears the constant stream of people who are escorted off the train and forced to walk either toward the gas chambers or to the camp. They walk day and night, the trains backed up at the ramp and waiting to unload.