Character Analysis
Schepschel has had time to learn how to survive because he's been in the camp for four years. He's lost his wife and five children, and now lives his life as "a sack which needs periodic filling" (9.20). Most of his activities are pretty innocuous: he steals broom handles to exchange for bread, which he in turn exchanges for other items. He also puts his dancing skills to good use by entertaining other prisoners for more bread rations. He's not above selling out his friend to get a better work assignment: he tattles on his friend for stealing something from the kitchen, gets him whipped for it, and swoops in and takes his (former) friend's relatively cushy job of "vat-washer" (9.22).