Character Analysis
The Head Honchos of the Polymerization Department
Doktor Ingenieur Pannwitz
The three scientists in the laboratory are men who, under any other circumstances, would rightfully consider Primo one of their colleagues, since he has just as good an education as they do. This is not the case in Auschwitz, though.
Pannwitz is the most fully described character of the three. He's a fair-haired, blue-eyed, stereotypical-looking German. At the Chemical Examination, he looks at Primo like he's "behind the glass window of an aquarium" (10.32). It's this look that causes Primo to think that "[b]lue eyes and fair hair are essentially wicked" (10.33).
Primo thinks that he'd like to meet up with Pannwitz again, after everything was all over, "not from a spirit of revenge, but merely from a personal curiosity about the human soul" (10.31). The takeaway here is that Primo can't believe that such an educated man, whose scientific field relies on the strictest logic, reason, and empirical evidence, could buy into something so utterly insane as what is taking place in Germany.
The Ladies of the Laboratory
It's been a long time since Primo and the other prisoners have seen women (and not just the prisoner-women, who actually dress and behave like men), so he's excited to learn that some young German women also work in the lab, Fräulein Liczba (a Polish store-keeper) and Frau Meyer (the secretary).
We almost see a glowing halo and hear a celestial choir singing in the background when Primo describes them: "They have smooth, rosy skin, beautiful attractive clothes, clean and warm, blond hair, long and well-set; they speak with grace and self-possession" (15.26).
Cut to a sound like music suddenly cutting off, though, because these ladies aren't so great underneath appearances. Primo tells us that "instead of keeping the laboratory clean and in order [...] they smoke in the corners, scandalously eat bread and jam, file their nails, break a lot of glass vessels and then try to put the blame on us" (15.26). As if all that isn't bad enough, they, too, hate the Jews. When they sweep, they don't even wait until Primo and his two companions are out of their way, but instead sweep their feet, like the men themselves are trash. When Primo asks Fräulein Liczba a question, she doesn't respond, but instead rattles off a bunch of German to Stawinoga, the overseer of the Lab, including the racial slur: "Stinkjude" (15.26).
They also prattle on about how they'll get to take their Christmas vacation so soon, but that travel is so tiring and that the year has gone by so quickly. They are self-centered and shallow, and discuss these trivial subjects in front of the prisoners as if they're not even there.