The Drowned and the Saved

Levi begins this chapter by discussing the unreliability of human memory, which “tends to become fixed in a stereotype […] which installs itself in the place of the raw memory and grows at its expense” (16). Despite the fallible nature of memory, he seeks to “examine here the memories of extreme experiences, of injuries suffered or inflicted” (16) specifically because “the factors that can obliterate or deform the mnemonic record are at work” (16). These factors include trauma, guilt, and pain, which are all experiences that characterize the time survivors spent in the Lagers at the hands of their oppressors.

Levi also compares the points of view of the victim and the oppressor. Thanks in part to the “numerous confessions, depositions and admissions on the part of the oppressors” (18), history is able to understand more than the descriptions of the injuries sustained by victims; more important than these descriptions, in Levi’s opinion, “are the motivations and justifications: why did you do this? Were you aware that you were committing a crime?” (18). According to the documents gathered after the war, the oppressors “all say substantially the same things” (19), explaining that they were ordered to do hateful things or conditioned by their environments to feel a certain way.