An emaciated figure in Auschwitz’s prison rags stands across a desk from a tall, thin, blond German named Doktor Pannwitz. From his office, Pannwitz can dispense life or death.

As the prisoner pleads his case, he fears leaving ‘a dirty stain’ on whatever he touches. Pannwitz looks at the prisoner ‘as if across the glass window of an aquarium between two beings who live in different worlds’.