Born in Poland, Tadeusz Borowski experienced the harsh reality of concentration camps during World War II. There at camp Auschwitz Borowski was acquainted early with deprivation and suffering. After his parents were transported to the Soviet Ukraine and Siberia, he was left to be raised by his aunt. Then in 1939 in Poland, the family was reunited, only to be occupied by the Nazis soon there after. Unable to attend school, Borowski studied on his own writing poetry. After his first publication, he was arrested and tattooed with a camp serial number and shipped to Auschwitz. As in his story, "this Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentleman," only Jews were sent to the chamber, to his advantage. After his two years in Auschwitz and Dachau he joined the Communist party as a journalist. Then only three years later he committed suicide, to be remembered for his one hundred pages of stories entitled "This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen." You can only be thankful that did you not get sent to the gas chamber. Although now you must face the almost unbearable circumstances of the heat, overcrowding, and labor such as stacking dead bodies or moving heavy baggage. Still you can only wait for the day when your set free or you sentenced to death. The Polish gentleman in the story is faced with many conflicts armed only with hope and intuition.
As the story begins and maneuvers its way to the end, we join a Polish gentleman shipped to a concentration camp. Although his name is never unveiled, he is the main as well as the round character. All events unfold around his. He is also joined with his friend Henri, a Frenchman who works at the docks. Also at the docks are the characters of the S.S. men, who supervise the camp inmates. Characters in the story are scare, the events of the story don't relate to just one individual in a sense, but nations of people. All these characters tie in to the actions and the attitude the Polish man experiences through the current events.
