WIST Quotations

Levi, Primo -- Survival in Auschwitz, “Initiation” (1958) [tr. Woolf (1961)]

Dave — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:17:42 +0000

Precisely because the Lager [camp] was a great machine to reduce us to beasts, we must not become beasts; that even in this place one can survive, and therefore one must want to survive, to tell the story, to bear witness; and that to survive we must force ourselves to save at least the skeleton, the scaffolding, the form of civilization. We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength, for it is the last — the power to refuse our consent.

Primo Levi (1919-1987) Italian Jewish chemist and writer
Survival in Auschwitz, “Initiation” (1958) [tr. Woolf (1961)]

Levi, Primo -- The Drowned and the Saved, ch. 2 “The Grey Zone” (1986) [tr. Rosenthal (1888)]

Dave — Tue, 26 May 2026 19:28:32 +0000

The ascent of the privileged, not only in the Lager [prison camp] but in all human coexistence, is an anguishing but unfailing phenomenon: only in utopias is it absent. It is the duty of righteous men to make war on all undeserved privilege, but one must not forget that this is a war without end. Where there exists power exercised by the few or by only one against the many, privilege is born and proliferates, even against the will of the power itself; but on the other hand it is normal for power to tolerate and encourage it.

Primo Levi (1919-1987) Italian Jewish chemist and writer
The Drowned and the Saved, ch. 2 “The Grey Zone” (1986) [tr. Rosenthal (1888)]
(Source)

Writing of the grey zone, the protekcja [privilege], of those who existed between being prisoners and the military running the camps. It was granted to those who collaborated / compromised with the prison structure (such as the Kapos), and included marginally better treatment and chances of survival.

Levi, Primo -- The Drowned and the Saved, ch. 6 “The Intellectual at Auschwitz” (1986) [tr. Rosenthal (1888)]

Dave — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 20:48:29 +0000

The aims of life are the best defense against death, and not only in the Lager.

Primo Levi (1919-1987) Italian Jewish chemist and writer
The Drowned and the Saved, ch. 6 “The Intellectual at Auschwitz” (1986) [tr. Rosenthal (1888)]
(Source)

Levi, Primo -- The Drowned and the Saved, ch. 8 “Letters from Germans” (1986) [tr. Rosenthal (1888)]

Dave — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 12:39:16 +0000

The true crime, the collective, general crime of almost all Germans of that time was that of lacking the courage to speak.

Primo Levi (1919-1987) Italian Jewish chemist and writer
The Drowned and the Saved, ch. 8 “Letters from Germans” (1986) [tr. Rosenthal (1888)]
(Source)

Regarding the Third Reich and the Holocaust.