Levi in Auschwitz
Primo Levi
This book is an undeniable classic. Written with authority and control, with a kind of restrained disgust, it has so many well phrased passages. Its unconventional structure makes it seem more modern than it is: Levi plunges in and out of episodes and time periods. Some things you would expect to be focused upon are not, while others are, such as those things that were most pertinent to individuals on the edge of survival, like the work they had to do in extreme cold.
Because Levi focuses so much of the daily physical privations and the work he had to do, I was continually reminded especially of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 Abridged. Interesting how similar both fascists and communists contrived in much the same way to grind millions of human beings into the ground—they took everything from them and ground them down with hunger, cold and work until they died, as of course North Korea is doing right now.
The moment it might have dawned upon Levi that people were being gassed and burned is not detailed. Rather, the idea of it seeps into the text, it is alluded to here and there only, and then finally it is spoken of as one of the facts of life that hangs over everyone. He has few words of hatred for the Germans, as if they are beyond contempt as forces of nothingness and evil—such words would not be enough, anyway.
It was clear Auschwitz was a very different experience depending on your nationality and religion, with the Germans at the top of the heap. But something that is not explored in the book, and which I only learned about recently, is that Auschwitz was a kind of resort for the Germans. They had fun there, with girls and good times, while overseeing the gassing and slaughter of 100s of thousands.
And it did not matter how strong you were, or how smart as a prisoner, what mattered was luck. If Levi does not state it outright, it is nonetheless clear that he only survived through luck. That’s a very sobering thought.
