Survival In Auschwitz Paperback – October 9, 2013

Primo Levi’s reflection on humanity in crisis: Survival in Auschwitz (If This is a man)Primo Levi’s memoir, Survival in Auschwitz (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996, translated by Giulio Einaudi), is not just about the author’s survival in the notorious Nazi concentration camp, but above all about the survival of his humanity after enduring such a grueling process of dehumanization. Published in 1947 under the Italian title If This is a Man (Se questo e un uomo), the author doesn’t claim to offer new information in this autobiographical book. Nor does he wish to level fresh accusations against the Nazis. Written in a calm, observational tone, Survival in Auschwitz sets out “to furnish documentation for a quiet study of certain aspects of the human mind” (9).Thoughtful and thought provoking, the narrative constitutes a reflection on the power—and limits—of forgiveness. In an interview published by the New Republic on February 16, 1986, Levi announces that he did not harbor feelings of hatred towards the Germans. He explains: “I regard hatred as bestial and crude, and prefer that my actions and thoughts be the product, as far as possible, of reason. Much less do I accept hatred directed collectively at an ethnic group, for example at all the Germans.” Levi views the Holocaust not as a reflection of the German nation, but as a much broader crisis of humanity. Nation after nation fell under the Nazi spell and power as many engaged in terrific acts of cruelty.Does this mean that the author absolves the Nazi of moral responsibility for their actions? Not at all. In the same interview, Primo Levi qualifies: “All the same, I would not want my abstaining from explicit judgment to be confused with an indiscriminate pardon.” He explains that he can only forgive those who show--through their actions, not just their words--that they take responsibility and feel guilty for their crimes against humanity. He is speaking, above all, of the crimes of ordinary men and women.In Survival in Auschwitz Levi describes how inflicting harm upon other human beings becomes completely routine. Without harboring any particular hatred, Nazi officers conduct the selection process and send hundreds of thousands of people—including practically all women and children—to their deaths in the gas chambers. One of the questions that continues to preoccupy Levi throughout his life is how this mass murder can become commonplace—little more than doing one’s job--and how much the German population at large knew about it and allowed it to happen.In the 1986 New Republic interview Levi, characteristically, offers a very reasonable answer: because totalitarian regimes function very differently from democracies it’s not possible to have a dissemination of truthful information and open criticism of despicable actions in totalitarian regimes that we can have in democratic societies. Yet, by the same token, Levi remarks, “it was not possible to hide the existence of the enormous concentration camp apparatus from the German people. What’s more, it was not (from the Nazi point of view) even desirable. Creating and maintaining an atmosphere of undefined terror in the country was one of the aims of Nazism.”Perhaps one of the most profound observations in Survival in Auschwitz is the statement that just as absolute happiness is impossible, so is absolute unhappiness, even in the hellish conditions of the Nazi concentration camps. Human beings gradually adapt to each phase of the process of dehumanization: starting with the isolation from the rest of the population in Jewish ghettos; to the order to gather by the train station to be transported in cattle trains to the concentration camps (he describes how lovingly mothers pack for the trip clothes and nourishment for their children, p.91); to the brutal conditions of the camps themselves. At each phase, victims focus on the moment-to-moment fight for survival. Heroism in such adverse conditions becomes almost impossible; while, conversely, as Levi observes, “to sink is the easiest of matters; it is enough to carry out all the orders one receives, to eat only the ration, to observe the discipline of the work and the camp” (Survival in Auschwitz, 90). In such a context, the quest for survival assumes heroic dimensions in itself, as is the ability to endure extreme hardship while remaining human and humane. Few are able achieve this: among those few is Levi’s friend, Lorenzo, the man who motivates him to do the same and whom he remembers fondly for the rest of his life.When asked, in the New Republic interview, why a grander, more ambitious heroism didn’t occur in the camps—“How is it that there were no large-scale revolts? —Levi reminds readers that in the heavily guarded concentration camps, “Escape was difficult and extremely dangerous. The prisoners were debilitated, besides being demoralized, by hunger and ill treatment. Their heads were shaved, their striped clothing was immediately recognizable, and their wooden clogs made silent and rapid walking impossible.” Moreover, the prisoners were in a foreign country whose inhabitants were largely hostile to them or, at best, indifferent to their plight and whose local language they didn’t speak. As for revolts, Levi points out, they existed—in Treblinka, Sobibor and Birkenau. However, “They did not have much numerical weight. Like the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, they represented, rather, examples of extraordinary moral force. In every instance they were planned and led by prisoners who were privileged in some way, and consequently in better physical and spiritual condition than the average camp prisoner.”Although he remained, philosophically speaking, a humanist and rationalist throughout his life despite the severe trauma he experienced in the Nazi concentration camps, Levi eventually succumbed to its effects: the depression and nightmares that haunted him throughout his life. In April 1987 he died after falling from his third-story apartment in Turin, which many close to him considered a suicide. Yet he did not write, suffer and die in vain. Through his memoirs, books and interviews, Primo Levi left behind an invaluable intellectual legacy that helps us recall, commemorate, and understand better the worst humanitarian crisis in our history.Claudia Moscovici, Holocaust Memory

Survival in AuschwitzPrimo LeviWith a poet’s skill for detail and evocative illustration, Primo Levi describes what happens to men when their humanity is systematically denied them. Published in Italy in 1958, as If This is a Man, the English title Survival in Auschwitz was a publisher’s decision. The original title maintains the more suggestive issue behind the book. Title aside, Levi’s book is perhaps the best book written about the existential experience of living in Auschwitz. It is also as clear a statement possible about how fragile is our humanity, and how easily ideological driven differences within a society can transform common citizens into sadists.Levi understood the camps to be a science experiment designed to eliminate the niceties that gird and enable individual and collective human co-existence. Hence, when the Jews arrived at the camps the Germans separated the fathers, the mothers, and their children from each other. They took away their clothes, cut off their hair, replaced their names with a number, and talked about them as if they were objects (stück). A couple hours after arriving in Auschwitz, all which remained of their humanity was their bodies. Their bodies would soon all look and smell like the living skeletons we associate with the concentration camps.Almost everyone who was not immediately killed was to put to this test: You are unconditionally alone. You will receive a minimum amount of food, the clothes we supply you are not meant to keep you warm, your shoes will rub your feet raw and the sores will get infected, you will get up at dawn and work throughout the day, and every day will be the same until we decide you must go to the chimneys.Moreover, no human kindness will be shown you. We do not consider you a human being. You will quickly learn to trust no one. Leave your spoon or bowl unguarded for a second and it will disappear. Sharing and caring for anyone but your self is a fool’s project; “eat your own bread, and if you can, that of your neighbor.” For the Jews, Auschwitz was not a punishment but a manner of living assigned to them by the SS. Life was reduced to “primordial mechanism.”The consequences of this treatment and how it plays out are superbly recounted by Levi. He writes that few prisoners consciously resigned themselves to their fate. Rather, they sank into the “opaque torpor of beasts broken in by blows, whom the blows no longer hurt.” They had lost their selves, become hollow, reduced to suffering and needs, fraternized in a uniform of internal desolation.Those who followed the rules were usually dead within three months. Only men with one of three qualities survived: 1) Those that they were physically powerful, 2) those who were ruthless and brutal, and 3) those that had a skill the Germans needed. In such a condition Levi asks if there any meaning to ‘good’ or ‘evil’, ‘just’ and ‘unjust’? Certainly our moral world could not survive. If that goes, so goes our humanity.Levi survived. He was lucky. At the beginning of his second winter in the camp the Germans opened a lab and needed Chemists. He was one and proved it. Inside the chemistry lab Levi had two things going for him. He was insulated from the winter, and he could steal equipment from the lab and sell it for food. Nonetheless, he had got to the point, as he said, where “I am not even alive enough to know how to kill myself.” He had been brought to the bottom, made hollow. Born 31 July 1919, Levi died 11 April 1987.This is a great book. Read it.

"For human nature is such that grief and pain - even simultaneously suffered - do not add up as a whole in our consciousness, but hide, the lesser behind the greater, according to a definite law of perspective. It is providential and is our means of surviving in the camp. And this is the reason why so often in free life one hears it said that man is never content." (Page 73)Primo Levi writes eloquently - though he has every right to douse himself in self-pity, Levi articulates his year-long experience in Auschwitz with detailed observations, acute emotions, and kernels of universal truth that readers can relate to even now, seventy years after the end of WWII.The writing style reads a bit dense at times, though whether Levi wrote it that way or it's due to the translation process I don't know. That being said, it isn't impossible to read - it forces readers to take his words in slowly, perhaps reread a sentence or two, and that may be where the power of his words stems from. No doubt this is one of the most important Holocaust books ever written.

I have read numerous Holocaust biographies. This book was the most disturbing and intimate look inside the camps I have ever read. Unlike other books in the genre, Primo made me feel like I was a prisoner in the camp with him. It was unnerving. He presents his experiences, thoughts, and actions unapologetically. His story breaches ethics and morality. It flies in the face of religion and established beliefs about good and evil. It frightened me. It left me feeling deflated and defeated. Which I think is the point.

Primo Levi was a victim of the Holocaust and incarcerated at Auschwitz. His story is a worthwhile read.The book arrived on time and in the condition described.

The media could not be loaded. I liked this book very much. The author has written it in a beautiful way which is very engrossing.

It just arrived yesterday, so not enough time to have read it. Arrived quickly and in perfect condition

Thanks for this wonderful book. The presentations is great. I enjoyed the size of letter and I finished loving again my dear Primo Levi. A wonderful narrator because he writes with his soul and a huge human being.

One of the most outstanding books I have read. The author writes his experiences leading up to and including his time at Auschwitz. Yes, he stated the facts, but he also created fine character sketches of those who were around him. The book showed his insightful awareness and beautifully narrated analysis of the reactions of others and of himself. He used many words which I was not aware of but now are part of my repertoire (handy to have the smart phone nearby and look up those words). This was not burdensome for me because he didn't use the words to impress but rather to express his thoughts precisely.

Well, when I first heard of the Levi book and the praise about it, I immediately wanted to buy one. That's done, I waited when my little kid would allow me some time to read it. And finally I have done it. I am glad I read it. However, I had an impression from the other praises I have heard, that this book should be marvellous. As it really is good and has given me some new insights of the life in lagers, I expected it to be more inspiring. Instead it was a good and honest story of the heartbreaking everyday life in a concentration camp. What limits me to give the book more stars is that some chapters seemed to me odd and repetitous. And the fact that on the subject of sufferings from a totalitarian regime I have read some other books whom I'd give five stars, as for example "The Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn or "With Dance Shoes in Siberian Snows" by Sandra Kalniete. Said that, I would still highly recommend this book as it is a must read on the Nazi concentration camps.