The Drowned and the Saved

“This book means to contribute to the clarification of some aspects of the Lager phenomenon which still appear obscure. It also sets for itself a more ambitious goal: it will try to answer the most urgent question, the question which torments all those who happened to read our accounts.” 

In the Preface to The Drowned and the Saved, Primo Levi states from the outset his desire to address a pressing concern: “how much of the concentration camp world is dead and will not return?” (13) He compares the camps to slavery and the practice of dueling, identifying them all as threats to the world at large.

“The best way to defend oneself against the invasion of burdensome memories is to impede their entry, to extend a cordon sanitaire. It is easier to deny entry to a memory than to free oneself from it after it has been recorded.” 

This description explains why Nazi commanders designed a system in which the perpetrators of the worst crimes against the victims were protected from their own guilt. A ready supply of alcohol, as well as the cultivation of dehumanizing attitudes, were parts of this system.

“He wants to tame you, extinguish in you the spark of dignity that you perhaps still preserve and he has lost. But trouble is in store for you if this dignity drives you to react: this is an unwritten but iron law.” 

New arrivals to the concentration camps often reacted to the physical abuse they experienced by defending themselves against their persecutors, an impulse that usually backfires. Other “functionaries” (37) get involved if the iron law is threatened, and the beating that ensues often kills.