Quote 16
“Each day it was Selektions. The doctors chose out the weaker ones to go and die.” (II.2.18)
Here’s a role reversal: the doctors are used not to cure the patients, but to kill them off.
Quote 17
“Ever since Hitler I don’t like to throw out even a crumb.” (II.3.68)
Vladek’s careful hoarding during his concentration camp days is a survival tactic. But outside the concentration camp, it looks like a pathological compulsion (see Quote #8 above).
Quote 18
“Yah, this was a camp – terrible! I had a misery, I can’t tell you … here, in Dachau, my troubles began.” (II.3.81)
“And here my troubles began” is the subtitle for Book II. It’s kind of ironic, since the statement suggests that Vladek’s troubles didn’t begin in Auschwitz or during the German occupation of Poland. The statement gives us a sense of how deplorable the conditions were at Dachau.