Primo Levi in \u200b\u200bhis memoirs about extreme experiences in Nazi concentration camps compiutesi dedicates latest book "The Drowned and the Saved" to what at first glance, it would seem a painful reminder of personal testament, ruthless self-analysis.
"Memento" "survive the worst, that is the most suitable, best are all dead. ... Among the survivors are much more numerous than those in captivity have been granted some privilege Thurs Years later you may well say that the history of Nazi concentration camps has been written almost only by those who, like myself, it has not plumbed the bottom. Who did not return. Death by starvation or disease induced by hunger, was the normal fate of the prisoner. Could be avoided only with a food surplus, and needed to get this privilege, large or small, in other words, one way or octroyé conquered, smart or violent, legal or illegal, to rise above the norm. "
"It seems that at this turning back to look at this dangerous water are due to many cases of suicide after the liberation. In most cases, the suicide comes from a sense of guilt. What crime? A finite things, the awareness of having done nothing, or ab- enough, against the system in which we had been absorbed. Of non-resistance in the camps, or rather in some camps, there has been talk too much and too little ... . More realistic is the self-accusation, or indictment, for having failed in the aspect of human solidarity. Few survivors feel guilty that he had deliberately injured, robbed, beaten a companion who did it (the Kapos, but not only them) removes the memory, on the other hand almost everybody feels guilty of wrongful death. The presence of a companion by your side weaker or more inexperienced, or older, or too young, you are obsessed with his requests for help, or with his simply be that itself is a prayer, is a constant of life in the camps. The demand for solidarity, a human word of advice, even just listening, it was permanent and universal, but was rarely satisfied. Lacked the time, space, privacy, patience, strength ...".
"I was a chosen one, I saved a. And why me? Maybe because I wrote, and writing por-rate testimony, as he explained a religious friend? This view seemed monstrous to me: I could be alive instead of another, at the expense of another, which I replaced, that is, in fact killed. The sal Vati the camps were not the best, predestined to good, the bearers of a message: what I saw and experienced showed the exact opposite. Preferably survived - we repeat - the worst, the selfish, the violent, the insensitive, the collaborators of the gray zone, the lights. It was not a certain rule (there were, nor are there in human affairs, certain rules), but was also a rule. I felt so innocent, but trooped among the saved, and therefore constantly looking for evidence that, before the eyes of myself and others. The religious friend told me that I survived to bear witness. I did better than I could, and I could not do it, but thought that I was able to witness the fruit from only the privilege of surviving, and living for many years without major problems, worries me, because I see no proportion between the privilege and the result. "
" I repeat, we are not true surviving witnesses. And 'This is the uncomfortable notion, which I have co science little by little, the memories of others by reading, and rereading my years later. We survivors are a small minority as well as abnormal, we are those who, by their abuse of power or skill or luck, have not hit bottom. Who did, who saw the Gorgon, has not returned or returned to tell dumb, but they, the drowned, witnesses integrals, those whose testimony would have general significance. They are the rule, we are the exception. Under another sky, and a recent history like slavery and different, it also noted Solzhenitsyn: "Almost everyone who has served a long sentence and with whom I congratulated because they are survivors, are certainly of pridurki or they have been for most of the prison. Why are the camps of extermination, this should not be forgotten. "
"In the language of that other concentration camp universe - clarifies Levi - the pridurki are prisoners who, in one way or another, have earned a position of privilege."
"They were not monsters, they had our face"
These harrowing thoughts drawn and paraphrased from "The Drowned and the Saved "by placing the author - Primo Levi - in an uncomfortable position, unbearable. He can not be considered a witness in full, just because he is a survivor: the only true witnesses could be submerged. But they were dead. And even if someone they had returned, he would not say. Even if they had access to paper and pencil, they would also testified, because their death had begun before that body. It 's the fate of Lawrence - Cases Caesar wrote in the introduction to "Works by P. Levi - Italian bricklayer who had helped Levi at Auschwitz and many others. After returning let go and die: the world had seen him, he did not like, he felt it go to ruin, not live longer interested. Cases And ends: "It seems that one day Primo Levi has come to this conclusion." Yes, he committed suicide the April 11, 1987: Primo Levi so it was among the witnesses called authentic, integral, finally, too overwhelmed!
But this intimate, tragic, determination - a personal memento executor, said at the beginning of this note - take the coloring of a public fearful, complains: "The experience we carry with us us survivors from Nazi concentration camps - Levi had written - is alien to the younger generation and is becoming more and more foreign as the years go by. "
"Things of other times? "he asked Levi. And 'maybe this painful question that lies more precisely the extreme desperation of the Auschwitz saved: even its test re-wrote the miseries sull'abominio raz ziste likely to prove futile, if on them falls oblivion, if "others" become the most threatening issues to consider. Yet remember - Levi warns - that our captors were "facts of our own stuff, they were average human beings, averagely intelligent, averagely wicked: exceptions, can not were monsters, they had our faces ... but were poorly educated. "
These are truths that should worry more occupations and pre-occupations of our communities, whether they intend to be free. Forget that evil is among us, means preparing new disasters. But who should teach them well, if the potential good teachers have done yesterday to serve the evil and could do the same tomorrow? Primo Levi recounts: "The Chronicles of Hitler's Germany swarm of cases that confirm this trend: we have succumbed, confirming it, the philosopher Heidegger, Sartre teacher; Stark physicist, Nobel Prize winner, Cardinal Faulhaber, the highest Catholic authority in Germany, and countless others. "
repeat: who should teach them well?
from "Life is skeptical, literary research of Nicholas Zoller
previous posts
January 27, 2008 Memorial Day
November 1, 2008 "slowly dying"
0 comments:
Post a Comment