Let's discuss my favorite subject ever: psychology. In order to keep the immense number of prisoners from banding together, the Nazis had to use several strategies. This included keeping the prisoners underfed, overworked, and exhausted - but psychologically, they had to remove one key element of survival from these prisoners. They had to remove safety. This involves a strategy known as gaslighting, which is defined as "a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgement, often evoking in them cognitive dissonance and other changes such as low self-esteem. Using denial, misdirection, contradiction, and falsity, gaslighting involves attempts to destabilize the victim and delegitimize the victim's beliefs." By constantly moving and shifting Primo's surroundings and environment, they kept him and the other prisoners on guard and isolated at all times. Tactics such as the strict, randomized rules of not being allowed to shower on the scheduled day kept prisoners unstable and therefore unable to rise up against the powers that be. The Japanese rulers in Silence used similar tactics on Rodrigues in order to make him question his humanity, his belief system, and his apologetics. That is what gaslighting is. I just find it interesting that while many corrupt or evil powers use either psychological warfare or physical trauma, the Nazis combined both, and they are possibly the most remembered for their strategies.
annakate and luke
annakate and luke
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