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.
Quotations about:
concentration camp
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In our country, disagreements among us are expressed in the polling place. In the dictatorships, disagreements are suppressed in the concentration camp.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933–1945)
Speech (1941-03-29), Jackson Day Radio Broadcast, U.S.S. Potomac
(Source)
The concentration camps, by making death itself anonymous (making it impossible to find out whether a prisoner is dead or alive), robbed death of its meaning as the end of a fulfilled life. In a sense they took away the individual’s own death, proving that henceforth nothing belonged to him and he belonged to no one. His death merely set a seal on the fact that he had never existed.
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
The Origins of Totalitarianism, Part 3, ch. 12 “Totalitarianism in Power,” sec. 3 (1951)
(Source)
When I found the first camp like that I think I never was so angry in my life. The bestiality displayed there was not merely piled up bodies of people that had starved to death, but to follow out the road and see where they tried to evacuate them so they could still work, you could see where they sprawled on the road. You could go to their burial pits and see horrors that really I wouldn’t even want to begin to describe. I think people ought to know about such things. It explains something of my attitude toward the German war criminal. I believe he must be punished, and I will hold out for that forever.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Press Conference (18 Jun 1945)
