Primo Levi's Memories of Auschwitz rimo Levi (1919-1987) was an Italian Jew who joined the underground resistance to fascism I in his home country. Like millions of other European Jews, he was sent to a Nazi concentra- tion camp, but he survived and became one of the was returning for the first time to Auschwitz on a Polish train. Primo Levi took his own life in 1987. Source: Interview with Dariel Toaff, Sorgenti di Vita (Springs of Life), a program on the Unione Comunta Isroeitiche Itat iane, Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAIJ. From the transcript of a 1983 Italian radio broadcast, http://www.inch.com/-ari/ levil.html. The English translation is by Mrto Stone, modi- fied for clarity. Reprinted by permission of the translator. world's most renowned writers. The extract below is taken from an interview that appeared on Italian television in 1983. The interview took place as Levi Return to Auschwitz INTERVIEWER: Did you know where you were golng [on the train to Auschwitz]? PRIMO LEVI: We didn't know anything. We INTERVIEWER: What happened to the children and their mothers when [you arrived at Auschwitz]? LEVI: Ah well, they were killed right away: out of the 650 of us on the train, 400-500 died the same evening we arrived or the next. They were immediately sorted out into the gas chambers, in these grim night scenes, with people screaming and yelling. They were yelling like I never heard before. They were yelling orders we didn't understand.... There was an offi- cer... who would ask each one of us, "Can you walk or not?" I consulted with the man next tome, a friend, from had seen on the cars at the station the writing "Auschwitz" but in those times, I don't think even the most informed people knew where Auschwitz was.... INTERVIEWER: What was your first [experlence of Auschwitz? LEVI: It was night time, after a disastrous journey during which some of the peo- ple in the car had died, and ariving in a place where we didn't understand the language, the purpose.... It was really an alienating experience. It seemed we had abandoned the ability to reason, we didn't reason. Padua. He was older than me and also in poor health. I told htm l'll say I can work, and he answered, "You do as you please. For me, everything is the same." He had. already abandoned any hope. In fact he sald he couldn't work and didn't come INTERVIEWER: And how was the journey, those five days? LEVI: There were forty-five of us in a very small car. We could barely sit, but there wasn't enough room to lie down. And there was a young mother breast-feeding a baby. They had told us to bring food. Foolishly we hadn't brought water. No one had told us, and we suffered from a terrifying thirst even though it was win- ter. This was our first, tormenting pain, for five days. The temperature was below into the camp. I never saw him again.... INTERVIEWER: And the food, how was It there? LEVI: They gave us a minimal ration equiva- lent to about 1600-1700 calories a day, but... there were thefts and we would always get less.... Now, as you know, a man who doesn't welgh much can live on 1600 calorles without working, but just laying down. But we had to work, and in the cold, and at hard labor. Thus this ration of 1600 calories was a slow death by starvation. Later I read some research done by the Germans which said that a man could last, living off his zero and our breath would freeze on the bolts and we would compete, scraping off the frost, full of mist as it was, to have a few drops with which to wet our lips. And the baby cried from morning to night because his mother had no milk left. Russia of the Czars. And there was no escape: all of Europe had become a huge trap. It entailed a turning point, not only for European Jews, but also for American Jews, for the Jews of the entire world. INTERVIEWER: In your opinion, another Auschwitz, another massacre like the one which took place forty years ago, could it happen again? LEVI: Not in Europe, for reasons of immunity. own reserves and that diet, from two to three months. INTERVIEWER: But in the concentration camps one would adapt to anything? LEVI: Eh, the question is a curious one. The ones who adapted to everything are those who survived, but the majority did not adapt to everything, and died. They died because they were unable to adapt even to things which seem trivlal to us. For example, they would throw a pair of mismatched shoes at you.... One was too tight, the other too big... and those Some kind of immunization must exist. It is [possible] that in fifty or a hundred years Nazism may be reborn in Gemany; or Fascism in Italy.... But the world is much bigger than Europe. I also think that there are countries in which there would be the desire, but not the means. The Idea is not dead. Nothing ever dies. Everything arises renewed. INTERVIEWER: Is it possible to abolish man's humanity? LEVI: Unfortunately, yes. Unfortunately, yes. And that is really the characteristic of the Nazi camps.... It is to abolish man's personality, inside and outside: not only of the prisoner, but also of the jaller. He too lost his personality in the concentra- tion camp.... Thus it happened to all, a profound modification in their personal- ity.... The memory of family had fallen into second place in face of urgent needs, of hunger, of the necessity to protect oneself agalnst cold, beatings, fatigue... all of this brought about some who were sensitive to infections would die. Die of shoes-of infected wounds which never healed. The feet would swell, rub up agalnst the shoes and one had to go to the hospital. But at the hos- pital swollen feet were not considered a disease. They were too common so those who had swollen feet would be sent to the gas chambers.... INTERVIEWER: For the Italians, there was the language problem.... LEVI: Understanding one another is very important. Between the man who makes himself understood and that one who doesn't there is an abysmal difference: the first saves himself.... The majority of Italians deported with me died in the first few days for being unable to under- stand. They didn't understand the or ders, but there was no tolerance for those who didn't understand. An order was given once, yelled, and that was it. Afterwards there were beatings.... reactions which we could call animal- like. We were like work animals. INTERVIEWER: Do you think that people today want to forget Auschwitz as soon as possible? LEVI: Signs do exist that this is taking place: forgetting or even denying. This is mean- ingful. Those who deny Auschwitz would be ready to remake it. INTERVIEWER: We are about to return to our hotel in Kracow. In your opinion, what did the holocaust represent for the Jewish people? LEVI: It represented a turning point.... [It] was perhaps the first time in which anti- Semitism had been planned by the state, not only condoned or allowed as in the