2BR02B

Karen Ramirez Period 3 September 12, 2013

A time where people get to live for hundreds of years and a time where diseases are cured. Sounds wonderful- only it actually isn't. 2BR02B sets a time period in the late future where dying of natural causes wasn't feared, but also where children were rarely born and population was controlled strictly. Children were not aloud to be born unless people volunteered to die by calling the number 2BR02B so the population will stay at 40 million. The author of this short story, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., served in the army during WWII and knew many of the tragic things that happened in the Holocaust and referenced it throughout the story subliminally. One thing Vonnegut mentioned was the dehumanization of the Jewish people as well as the people in the setting of 2BR02B.

During the Holocaust, Jews or anyone sent to concentration camps were taken away their human rights and were pretty much treated like garbage with no feelings which relates to the problem being addressed in 2BR02B since people are just seen as numbers. 2BR02B "was the telephone number of the municipal gas chambers of the Federal Bureau of Termination" which was called if someone didn't want to live anymore or wanted to give their life up so someone else could be brought to the world. Like 2BR02B, the Holocaust also had chambers to kill the people in the death camps showing how dehumanized. Life isn't seen as valuable by society in either. Prisoners in the death camps were ordered to head to take a "shower" by the Nazis, "However, in the so-called "Shower Room," Zyclon B, a poisonous gas, was released until everybody suffocated to death.".

Though in 2BR02B, it seems that it would be nice to live for hundreds of years, but life becomes less valuable and pretty much just seen as someone who should die to let someone else live. The holocaust also made prisoners feel like their lives weren't valuable since they were killed by the hundreds.  Vonnegut, since he was alive during the Holocaust based a lot of his statements in 2BR02B from the way Jews were treated. Like the Holocaust, 2BR02B mentioned gas chambers to kill people showing how little they actually cared for the life to begin with. Neither cared for value in life anymore. In 2BR02B, society only cared about maintaining the population to prevent chaos and Nazis only cared about eliminated the Jews by killing them viciously. They both dehumanized the people.

http://holocaustcenterpgh.org/page.aspx?id=148357