Journal #17: Chapter 17

In this chapter, I found return of humanity among the men. After the SS men and other comrades had evacuated the camp, the men who were left behind suddenly cooperated to survive. They found food, stove, and wood and use them in order to sustain their lives longer. But WHY? Why did they start working together after the SS men left the camp? Why didn’t they cooperate before?

Despite what they had found in the camp, the condition was getting worse. Many of them suffered from pneumonia and diarrhea and felt really weak. It is very impressive how Primo Levi depicted death in Auschwitz.

"Their weakest comrades and those who were most serious ill died one by one in solitude” (169).

"He heard me, struggled to sit up, then fell dangling, head downwards over the edge towards me, with his chest and arms stiff and his eyes white. The man in the bunk below automatically stretched up his arms to support the body and then realized that he was dead. He slowly with drew from under the weight and the body slid to the ground where it remained. Nobody knew his name” (169).

"With the last gasp of life, he had thrown himself to the ground: I heard the thud of his knees, of his hips, of his shoulders, of his head … We certainly could not carry him out during the night. There was nothing for it but to go back to sleep again … On the floor, the shameful wreck of skin and bones, the Somogyi thing. There are more urgent tasks: we cannot wash ourselves, so that we dare not touch him until we have cooked and eaten. The living are more demanding; the dead can wait” (172).

Primo Levi described the death in a very solemn and neutral tone. The dead were not important in Auschwitz. They were no value. The living always comes first. But how lonely the dead would have been… I felt extreme sorrow and pity, even guilt, for the dead. I can’t even imagine how frightened they have been, breathing their last breath, alone in the dark. According to Primo Levi, they “died one by one in solitude” while “nobody know their names” and were left behind because the dead “could wait.”

How do I want to die? Obviously, I do not want to end my life as the men in Auschwitz did. I don’t want to die alone in the dark, where nobody would care about me. One of the people whom I know once told me that “Life is full of sorrow; a human being is a solitary existence.” Now I understand her statement. Even though we are surrounded by others most of times, we are all lonely souls at the end. We want to love and to be loved. Fighting against loneliness and searching for humanity were great struggles for the men in Auschwitz. And they are still struggles for us who are living 60 years after the unforgettable, unforgivable tragedy.

Memorable Quotes:
“It was exactly like that; for the first time since the day of my arrest I found myself free, without armed guards, without wire fences between myself and home” (167-168).

“An old Hungarian had been surprised there by death. He lay there like hunger personified…” (168).

“Because one loses the habit of hoping in the Lager, and even of believing in one’s own reason. In the Lager it is useless to think, because events happen for the most part in an unforeseeable manner; and it is harmful, because it keeps alive a sensitivity which is a source of pain, and which some providential natural law dulls when suffering passes a certain limit” (171).

“Like joy, fear and pain itself, even expectancy can be tiring” (171).

“We lay in a world of death and phantoms. The last trace of civilization had vanished around and inside us” (171).

“It is man who kills, man who created or suffers injustice; it is no longer man who, having lost all restraint, shares his bed with a corpse” (171).