It was not a certain rule… but it was, nevertheless, a rule… The best all died. That is, the people like himself who cooperated with evil in order to extend their lives. For some, this collaboration was minor, perhaps cobbling Nazi boots for an extra ration of bread. For others, it was deep. A handful of prisoners helped administrate the smooth running of the camps.
Between those poles, there was every shade of complicity and coercion, and this confounds the desire to pin innocence and blame. What Levi saw in the Holocaust changed his perception of humans, but he never believed it had shown us their true nature. But what of the Nazis?
As so often in human affairs, the two alternatives coexisted. But Levi stresses that it is not incomprehensible. On the level of the individual, at least, it was made up of recognisable human motivations. Some Nazis were fanatics; some were opportunists; some were cowards. But humans, en masse, can do inhuman things.
Levi agonised over his foreword to the book. He felt the pull of, and resisted, the consolations of rage and blame and despair. If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter. And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc. Primo Levi: A clear-eyed view of evil, pain and humanity. Share using Email. He reflected vividly on remembering the "greatest crime in the history of mankind.
As in his previous works, it is clear how much he was burdened by the "shame" of surviving and living a happy life. This is an uncomfortable insight that I slowly became aware of as I read the memoirs of others and re-read my own after a period of years.
We survivors are not only a tiny minority, but also an anomalous minority; we are those who have not touched the deepest point of the abyss because of our neglect of duty, our dexterity, or our happiness. He who touched it could not return to report, or he became mute. The book ends with a series of letters he had received from German readers of his first Auschwitz report in the s.
They document the repressed and divided sense of guilt of contemporary witnesses. Read more: Renowned Hungarian philosopher Agnes Heller dies at In the end, Levi's nightmare didn't become reality after all.
Until his death in at the age of 67, he was regarded as a writer who fought passionately against fascism and National Socialism. The German chemical company IG Farben also paid him compensation for the forced labor he performed in the concentration camp.
In his novel about a Holocaust scholar, Yishai Sarid is critical of Israeli remembrance culture. In an interview with DW, he speaks about Auschwitz and the pornography of evil.
It is imperative to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive, the International Auschwitz Committee's Christoph Heubner tells DW, because the danger that people will again be lured down a similar path is ever-present. The film is to be released worldwide on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Visit the new DW website Take a look at the beta version of dw. Go to the new dw. More info OK. Levi turned increasingly to works of fiction, including novels and short stories, and was a regular contributor of poetry to the Turin newspaper La Stampa.
He was the winner of several literary prizes, including the Strega Prize, a prestigious Italian award, in In he and Saul Bellow shared the Kenneth B. Smilen fiction award, sponsored by the Jewish Museum in New York.
While devoted to his writing, Mr. Levi continued his career as a chemist, working for a Turin paint factory, SIVA, for almost 30 years. From to , he was the plant's general manager. Levi described himself as ''a chemist by conviction,'' but added, ''After Auschwitz, I had an absolute need to write. That need was reflected in a Yiddish proverb he used as an epigraph for ''The Periodic Table'': ''Troubles overcome are good to tell.
Levi wrote in an Italian enriched by snatches of the disappearing jargon of the Piedmontese Jews, which combined Hebrew roots with local endings and inflections. Middle-Class Origins. Choosing to relate his story with the calm and reasoned detachment of a scientist, Levi spent the next two years completing his first work, If This Is a Man later published as Survival in Auschwitz. A 2,copy printing was published in Italy in October but was largely ignored.
In the decade that followed, Levi turned his attention to family life, marrying Lucia Morpurgo, with whom he would have two children, and working briefly as a chemical consultant before returning to a position at a paint factory. However, his urge to bear witness to the Holocaust had not faded and he continued to tell his story through memoirs, poems, short stories and fiction. This renewed interest in his work brought Levi a certain measure of his success, and in the coming years he was able to publish various other works, including his autobiographical The Truce and two collections of science-fiction stories.
Two years after its publication, Levi retired from his position at the paint factory to devote his time completely to writing. The critical and commercial success of The Periodic Table led Levi to a speaking tour of the United States the following year, and in he published yet another book of his experiences, titled The Drowned and the Saved.
It would be his last. On April 11, , the concierge in the apartment building where Primo Levi had lived for most of his life before and after the war found him dead at the bottom of the stairwell. The coroner ruled that his death was a suicide, and many people who knew him believed it to be as well—the end result of the suffering he had endured decades earlier and had lived with since.
However, others have maintained that the death was an accident, pointing to the fact that he had suffered from dizzy spells. The question is a controversial one and remains the subject of some debate.
Besides the body of work that Levi himself left behind, which has made him one of the most important of all Holocaust writers, he has also been the subject of numerous documentaries and biographies.
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