Introduction
Primo Levi wrote Survival in Auschwitz as an account of his sufferings and the challenges that he and his fellow prisoners faced while being detained by the Nazis at Auschwitz. Having been arrested in December 1943 for being an anti-fascist Italian Jew, Primo was initially lodged at a prison in Italy and then sent to Auschwitz in February 1944. He managed to be alive only because, by the year 1944, the Nazis had softened on genocide and adopted a policy of forced labor for the prisoners. Levi had to stay back when his prison camp was shifted in 1945 since he was suffering from scarlet fever and after having miraculously survived for ten days in the abandoned camp, he was rescued by the Soviet army.
Life in Auschwitz
Primo Levi is one of the most insightful and forthright intellectuals who had an experience of the Holocaust and survived in narrating its details. In being prisoner number 174517, Primo was proscribed and had to face the brunt of the unreasonable and cruel actions of his captors. He considered that he was able to survive only because of several varied and inadvertent circumstances. Primo has referred to Auschwitz as a true university for him because it taught him so much about human behavior and communication techniques to effectively deal with fellow prisoners and prison guards.
He has recalled that several prisoners were sent to be killed simply because they could not understand the orders given in German. In narrating his good fortune he writes “It was my good fortune to be deported to Auschwitz only in 1944” (Primo Levi, 1996), and explains that when he reached Auschwitz “the German Government had decided, owing to the growing scarcity of labor, to lengthen the average life-span of the prisoners destined for elimination” (Primo Levi, 1996).
There was a constant effort on the part of every prisoner to learn survival tactics and Levi has recalled how he was invoked into the prison system when he arrived at Auschwitz. His relationship with Lorenzo Perrone was a big reason for his remaining alive. For six months this Italian had shared his food with Primo at the cost of his rations and had he not suffered from scarlet fever the Germans would have sent him to the gas chambers.
The Nazi policy at the time was not to kill all prisoners in gas chambers but to make them work towards their death. Primo is all praise for Resnyk, a strong prisoner who accepted him as his partner in the strenuous activity of hauling heavy load through the bitter cold and muddy terrain. Primo is very specific about Resnyk being big support in saving his life since he would carry the major part of the load that they were required to carry together.
The author has narrated some good moments whereby “today the sun rose bright and clear for the first time from the horizon of mud,” (Primo Levi, 1996) because extra ration was provided to prisoners thus reducing their ordeal of extreme hunger. Primo writes on behalf of all his prison mates and not from the point of view of a solitary prisoner’s subjective narration. Levi’s language is such that his account becomes the voice of the prisoners and all descriptions about his personal experiences are written in first-person plural form.
He has written in this regard about the successful efforts of the Nazis in turning the prisoners against each other. They were made to viciously and violently compete for meager crumbs of extra food or for gaining momentary relief from the hard labor. But such instances always resulted in some of the prisoners dying at the hands of their mates.
Conclusion
Primo writes about the things that the prisoners learned to survive the harsh circumstances. They used wire to tie their shoes; rags were used for wrapping around bruised feet and illegally collected waste paper was padded into their jackets to get relief from the cold. They did not trust each other and learned the art of safeguarding their belongings by making a bundle of them and using it as a pillow at night. Levi’s book is in essence the representative voice of all Auschwitz survivors and all the experiences narrated are collective as if experienced by all of them.
Levi has insisted that they were always on the verge of collapse in suffering from pangs of hunger, thirst, and fatigue and such suffering cannot be inferred in the outside world because the Holocaust was an attempt for the demolition of the man and that it was not possible to stoop lower than what was being done. It was as if all prisoners were speaking in one voice, “they have taken away our clothes, our shoes, even our hair; if we speak, they will not listen to us, and if they listen, they will not understand. They will even take away our name” (Primo Levi, 1996).
Works Cited
Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz, 1996, Simon and Schuster.