Survival in Auschwitz in 100+ Books in 2025

Jun 20, 2013 Dolly rated it really liked it

Shelves: germany-german, biography-autobiography-memoir, france-french, poland, 2013, nonfiction, own-voices, jewish-israel, military, italy-italian-roman

This is a powerful, haunting tale of one man's experiences in a concentration camp during WWII. I recently read the book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and I was astonished at the similarities between the stories. The main difference is that the specter of the crematorium was constantly in Primo's mind, expecting that he would be killed at virtually any time. Still, the willingness of people to be so utterly cruel and evil toward others is bewildering to me.

I thought it was interesting t This is a powerful, haunting tale of one man's experiences in a concentration camp during WWII. I recently read the book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and I was astonished at the similarities between the stories. The main difference is that the specter of the crematorium was constantly in Primo's mind, expecting that he would be killed at virtually any time. Still, the willingness of people to be so utterly cruel and evil toward others is bewildering to me.

I thought it was interesting that the original title of the book, written in Italian, is If This Is a Man, which I think is a more poignantly apt title for the utter degradation the author experienced. Still, I was held captive by his words as I learned more about his time in Buchenwald.

interesting quotes:

"At that time I had not yet been taught the doctrine I was later to learn so hurriedly in the Lager: that man is bound to pursue his own ends by all possible means, while he who errs but once pays dearly." (p. 13)

"Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable. The obstacles preventing the realization of both these extreme states are of the same nature: they derive from our human condition which is opposed to everything infinite." (p. 17)

"Alas for the dreamer: the moment of consciousness that accompanies the awakening is the acutest of sufferings. But it does not often happen to us, and they are not long dreams. We are only tired beasts." (p. 44)

"The conviction that life has a purpose is rooted in every fibre of man, it is a property of the human substance. Free men give many names to this purpose, and think and talk a lot about its nature. But for us the question is simpler.
Today, in this place, our only purpose is to reach the spring. At the moment we care about nothing else." (p. 71)

"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 our means of surviving the camp. And this is the reason why so often in free life one hears it said that man is never content. In fact it is not a question of a human incapacity for a state of absolute happiness, but of an ever-insufficient knowledge of the complex nature of the state of unhappiness; so that the single name of the major cause is given to all of its causes, which are composite and set out in order of urgency. And if the most immediate cause of stress comes to an end, you are grievously amazed to see that another one lies behind; and in reality a whole series of others." (p. 73)

"However little sense there may be in trying to specify why I, rather than thousands of others, managed to survive the test, I believe that it was really due to Lorenzo that I am alive today; and not so much for his material aid, as for having constantly reminded me by his presence, by his natural and plain manner of being good, that there still existed a just world outside our own, something and someone still pure and whole, not corrupt, not savage, extraneous to hatred and terror; something difficult to define, a remote possibility of good, but for which is was worth surviving.
The personages in these pages are not men. Their humanity is buried, or they themselves buried it, under an offense received or inflicted on someone else. The evil and insane SS men, the Kapos, the politicals, the criminals, the prominents, great and small, down to the indifferent slave Häftlinge, all the grades of the mad hierarchy created by the Germans paradoxically fraternized in a uniform internal desolation.
But Lorenzo was a man; his humanity was pure and uncontaminated, he was outside this world of negation. Thanks to Lorenzo, I managed not to forget that I myself was a man." (pp. 121-122)

new words: involucre, praecordia, thaumaturge, plebiscitary, physiognomy, ichneumon, ganglion, corvée, propitiatory, picaresque ...more

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Dec 21, 2016 Carmen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: world-history

Primo Levi tells us of his life inside Auschwitz. Actually it is an auxillary of Auschwitz, but the same deal. He is an Italian Jew, a chemist who starts the story by saying he was lucky enough to be imprisoned late in the war. (He had a higher survival rate). His details of how he lived, what happened, and mostly how he felt, really bore into your brain. He is a master of language, with a few words can describe many events or feelings. Very thought provoking story.

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