Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
There is a muy bizarre moment about halfway through this novel when Campbell visits the Noths for the last time. A group of enslaved women from Russia are emptying out the Noth household and loading stuff onto wagons as part of Resi's move. Werner Noth is overseeing their labors, along with the man who owns them and another armed guard.
Yes, we said "the man who owns them," because they're actually out there doing it like that in Nazi Germany.
As they're working, one elderly woman almost drops an expensive blue vase. She's described as being sort of out of it—the vase means nothing to her, and she almost doesn't even notice it's about to slip.
Noth, however, notices—and he flips out. Majorly. He's angry pants. Luckily, she's not physically punished for this. However, things get real weird, real fast.
What was finally done with her was curious. She wasn't hurt.
She was deprived of the honor of carrying any more of Noth's things.
She was made to stand to one side while others continued to be trusted with treasures. Her punishment was to be made to feel like a fool. She had been given her opportunity to participate in civilization, and she had muffed it. (18.51)
It's chilling that an empty vase—even as an art object—gets to be a stand-in for civilization while an actual human's life is devalued. Noth doesn't let up even by the end of the chapter: he goes over to the woman and continues to harp about the blue vase in an effort to make her a "useful human being" (18,92).
That's the part that's so gross. Humans here are made slaves—use-oriented beings—while objects are hailed as invaluable emblems of humanity. It's a fact that many Nazis were art and music connoisseurs—in their downtime. During the workday, they just casually arranged the deaths of millions of people. But they did love their art. It's sick, it's freaky, and it happened. Turns out just being a cultivated, educated, elite person doesn't necessarily make you a good person.
That blue vase is here to remind us all about that.