Primo Levi's memoir, Survival in Auschwitz, is a moving account of one young man's struggle for survival in the notorious Polish concentration camp. Levi employs a unique narrative structure, emphasizing the power of words both thematically and stylistically. Levi is only twenty-five when he enters the camp, and his storytelling does much to reveal the devastating impact that concentration camps had on the psyche and on the spirit. Levi confronts the harsh reality of what life in Auschwitz means, and how different it is from any form of civilization. "Here the struggle to survive is without respite," he writes, "because everyone is desperately and ferociously alone" (88). One of the evil images that haunts Levi will haunt readers as well: "an emaciated man, with head dropped and shoulders curved, on whose face and in whose eyes not a trace of a thought is to be seen" (90).
In clear contrast to the camp's dehumanizing effects on its victims, Levi uses language to stir the hearts of his readers. In a kind of dictionary of suffering, he gives the reader the terms of his old existence: Buna, where young men labor in a factory that will never produce synthetic rubber; Ka-Be, the infirmary where Levi is granted a few weeks' rest to recover from a foot injury, and Selekcja, the Polish word for "selection," that seals the fate of those marked for the crematorium. Because the camp contains Jews and other prisoners from all parts of Europe, facility with multiple languages represents a survival tool as well as a mark of education. Levi tells the success story of young man, Henri, who is able to cultivate many contacts because he speaks four languages. In one of the book's most heart-stirring passages, Levi attempts to translate Dante's canto of Ulysses into French in an effort to increase a friend's understanding of his heritage and the remnants of his humanity (112).
As Levi notes in the foreword, his narrative is not strictly chronological-the main events are in 1944, but Levi does not give dates to events until the last few days in camp, after the Germans have evacuated. In one chapter, Levi has to ask himself, "How many months have gone by since we entered the camp?" Eventually he asks the more sobering question, "how many of us will be alive at the new year?" (136).
That Levi can begin to keep track of time after the camp's liquidation signifies his return to a life where the future is more than another day of deprivation and suffering. At one point, Levi notes that the camp term for "never," is morgen früh, German for tomorrow morning (133). Though Levi's book is powerful for the factual events it recounts, the questions it raises leave the most lasting impact. Survival in Auschwitz asks what makes a human, what it takes to destroy that humanity, and humanity is recovered. Many readers wishing to learn more about the Holocaust or concentration camps will find Levi's work powerful and enriching. Perhaps more importantly, these readers will continue to ask Levi's questions in today's society.
I also recommend 'The Quest' by Giorgio Kostantinos.
