Around here, whoever has grub, has power.
-- Narrator (“This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” paragraph 12)

Importance: In the concentration camps, where food is often scarce, food is often used as a bargaining tool. Therefore, those who had food could use it to get what they wanted.

It is the camp law: people going to their death must be deceived to the very end.
-- Narrator (“This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” paragraph 71)

Importance: Tadek writes how the work prisoners at the concentration camps would pretend not to understand what the prisoners were asking when they questioned what was about to happen to them. Even though everyone knew the people were about to be killed, they were not to be told of their fate.

When I had nothing, I slept in peace. And now! No matter how well I wrap my packages and tie them with string and wire, someone always manages to get them.
-- Tadek (“A Day at Harmenz” paragraph 17)

Importance: Tadek complains to a lady in the camp how he slept soundly when he had...