In the following essay excerpt, Bosmajian analyzes "This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen," commenting on Borowski's "climactic but ironic use of parallelisms."
[Borowski's] stories, while they can be arranged to give the illusion of beginning, middle, and end, are really memory shards in which he retraces his guilt, reacts aggressively against it, and mocks himself profoundly as an artist in a world of stone.
[In "This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen," we see] how a young man, the narrator Tadek, incorporated Auschwitz ... Tadek, who works at the ramp, actively participates in sending thousands to their deaths. Yet the nonmetaphysically inclined Tadek also arrives at metaphysical intimations; for the magnitude of decreation around him evokes such resonances in "This Way for the Gas," internalizes them in "A Visit," and disgorges them in.....
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