How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
'After two years of hearing that call over the loudspeakers, between the music,' Gutman said to me, 'the position of corpse-carrier suddenly sounded like a very good job.'
'I can understand that,' I said.
'You can?' he said. He shook his head. 'I can't,' he said. 'I will always be ashamed. Volunteering for the Sonderkommando, it was a very shameful thing to do.' (2.23-25)
Sometimes, when you betray someone, you also betray yourself. Gutman is haunted by his choice to volunteer as a corpse-carrier. He still can't wrap his mind around why he did it. By doing it, he hurt more than the collective effort of concentration camp prisoners to stay alive (which is bad enough already). He destroyed his ability to trust himself.
Quote #2
'If any member of my S.S. platoon had spoken in such a friendly way about the Jews,' said Arpad, 'I would have had him shot for treason! Goebbels should have fired you and hired me as the radio scourge of the Jews. I would have raised blisters around the world!'(3.13)
Arpad is an interesting character: while pretending to be an S.S. officer, he actually worked to help kill other Nazis. Nonetheless, many of his duties required him to be a Nazi in reality. When he criticizes Campbell here for what he thinks is his weak-sauce anti-Semitism, Arpad says he would have killed Campbell for being a traitor. Say what? Yeah, according to Arpad, Campbell wasn't pretending hard enough to be a Nazi, and that action makes him a traitor to Germany. Treason is complicated, folks.
Quote #3
I did not hang.
I committed high treason, crimes against humanity, and crimes against my own conscience, and I got away with them until now. (8.1-2)
You can be free of all charges, but you can't escape the verdict in your own head and heart. This entire novel exists not because Israel is putting Campbell on trial, but because Campbell has already tried himself and found himself guilty.