The Complete Works of Primo Levi

by Primo Levi

  “Are you a Jew?” I ask him.

  “Yes, a Polish Jew.”

  “How long have you been in the Lager?”

  “Three years,” and he lifts up three fingers. He must have been a child when he entered, I think with horror; on the other hand, this means that at least some manage to live here.

  “What is your job?”

  “Schlosser,” he replies. I don’t understand. “Eisen, Feuer” (iron, fire), he insists, and makes a play with his hands of someone beating with a hammer on an anvil. So he is a smith.

  “Ich Chemiker,” I state; and he nods earnestly and says, “Chemiker gut.” But all this has to do with the distant future: what torments me at the moment is my thirst.

  “Drink, water. We no water,” I tell him.

  He looks at me with a serious, almost severe face, and says clearly, “Don’t drink water, comrade,” and then other words that I don’t understand.

  “Warum?”

  “Geschwollen,” he replies cryptically. I shake my head, I haven’t understood. “Swollen,” he makes me understand, blowing out his cheeks and sketching with his hands a monstrous distention of the face and belly. “Warten bis heute Abend.” “Wait until this evening,” I translate word by word.

  Then he says, “Ich Schlome. Du?” I tell him my name, and he asks me, “Where your mother?”

  “In Italy.” Schlome is amazed: a Jew in Italy? “Yes,” I explain as best I can, “hidden, no one knows, run away, does not speak, no one sees her.” He has understood; now he gets up, approaches, and timidly embraces me. The adventure is over, and I am filled with a serene sadness that is almost joy. I never saw Schlome again, but I have not forgotten his serious and gentle child’s face, welcoming me on the threshold of the house of the dead.

  We have a great number of things to learn, but we have learned a lot already. Already we have some idea of the topography of the Lager; this Lager of ours is a square of about six hundred meters per side, enclosed by two barbed-wire fences, the inner one carrying a high-tension current. It consists of sixty wooden barracks, called Blocks, ten of which are still being built. In addition, there is the building that houses the kitchens, which is of brick; an experimental farm, run by a detachment of privileged Häftlinge; the barracks with the showers and the latrines, one for each group of six or eight Blocks. Besides these, certain Blocks are reserved for specific purposes. First of all, a group of eight, at the extreme eastern end of the camp, forms the infirmary and clinic; then, there is Block 24, which is the Krätzeblock, reserved for infectious skin diseases; Block 7, which no ordinary Häftling has ever entered, reserved for the Prominenz, that is, the aristocracy, the prisoners who hold the highest positions; Block 47, reserved for the Reichsdeutsche (Aryan Germans, political or criminal prisoners); Block 49, for the Kapos alone; Block 12, half of which serves as a canteen for the Reichsdeutsche and the Kapos, that is, a distribution center for tobacco, insect powder, and, occasionally, other articles; Block 37, which contains the main Quartermaster’s office and the Work Office; and, finally, Block 29, which always has its windows closed, because it is the Frauenblock, the camp brothel, serviced by Polish Häftling girls, and reserved for the Reichsdeutsche.

  The ordinary living Blocks are divided into two parts. In one, the Tagesraum, the head of the barrack lives with his friends. There is a long table, chairs, benches, and everywhere a lot of strange bright-colored objects, photographs, cuttings from magazines, sketches, artificial flowers, ornaments; on the walls are famous sayings, proverbs, and rhymes in praise of order, discipline, and hygiene; in one corner is a glass cabinet containing the tools of the Blockfrisör (official barber), the ladles for distributing the soup, and two rubber truncheons, one solid and one hollow, to enforce that discipline. The other part is the dormitory: there are only 148 bunks, in three tiers, divided by three aisles, and set close together like the cells of a beehive, so that all the space in the room, up to the roof, is utilized without waste. Here all the ordinary Häftlinge live, some 200 to 250 per barrack. Consequently there are two men in most of the bunks, which are made of short wooden planks, and provided with a thin straw sack and two blankets. The corridors are so narrow that two people can barely pass; the total floor area is so small that the inhabitants of the same Block cannot all be there at the same time unless at least half are lying on their bunks. Hence the prohibition on entering a Block to which one does not belong.

  In the middle of the Lager is the enormous Roll Call Square, where we gather in the morning to form the work squads and in the evening to be counted. Facing Roll Call Square is a bed of grass, carefully mowed, where the gallows is erected when necessary.

  We soon learned that the guests of the Lager are divided into three categories: criminals, politicals, and Jews. All are dressed in stripes, all are Häftlinge, but the criminals wear a green triangle next to the number sewn on their jacket; the political prisoners wear a red triangle; and the Jews, who form the large majority, wear the Jewish star, red and yellow. There are SS men, but they are few and outside the camp, and are seen relatively infrequently. Our masters in effect are the “green triangles,” who have a free hand over us, along with those from the other two categories who are willing to help them—and they are not few.

  We have learned other things, too, more or less quickly, according to our individual character: to answer “Jawohl,” never to ask questions, always to pretend to understand. We have learned the value of food; now we, too, diligently scrape the bottom of our bowl after the ration, and hold it under our chins when we eat bread so as not to lose the crumbs. We, too, know that it is not the same thing to be given a ladleful of soup from the top of the vat or from the bottom, and we are already able to judge, according to the capacity of the various vats, what is the best place to try for in the queue when we line up.

  We have learned that everything is useful: wire, for tying up our shoes; rags, to wrap around our feet; paper, to (illegally) pad our jacket against the cold. We have learned, on the other hand, that everything can be stolen, in fact is automatically stolen as soon as attention is relaxed; and, to avoid this, we have had to learn the art of sleeping with our head on a bundle made up of our jacket and containing all our belongings, from the bowl to the shoes.

  We already know in good part the rules of the camp, which are incredibly complicated. The prohibitions are innumerable: to come within two meters of the barbed wire; to sleep in one’s jacket, or without one’s pants, or with one’s cap on; to use certain washrooms or latrines, which are nur für Kapos or nur für Reichsdeutsche; not to have a shower on the prescribed day, or to have one on a day not prescribed; to leave the barrack with one’s jacket unbuttoned, or with the collar raised; to wear paper or straw under one’s clothes against the cold; to wash except stripped to the waist.

  The rites to be carried out are infinite and senseless: every morning you have to make the “bed” perfectly flat and smooth; smear your muddy and repellent clogs with the appropriate machine grease; scrape the mud stains off your clothes (paint, grease, and rust stains, however, are permitted). In the evening you have to be checked for lice and whether you have washed your feet; on Saturday, you have your beard and hair shaved, mend your rags or have them mended; on Sunday, there is a general check for skin diseases and a check for the number of buttons on your jacket, which should be five.

  In addition, there are innumerable circumstances, normally irrelevant, that here become problems. When your nails get long, they have to be shortened, which can only be done with your teeth (for toenails, the friction of the shoes is sufficient); if a button comes off, you have to know how to reattach it with a piece of wire; if you go to the latrine or the washroom, everything has to be carried along, always and everywhere, and while you wash your face the bundle of clothes has to be held tightly between your knees—in any other manner, it will be stolen in that second. If a shoe hurts, you have to show up in the evening at the ceremony of the shoe exchange: this tests the skill of each indivi
dual, who, in the midst of an incredible throng, has to be able to choose at a glance one (not a pair, one) shoe that fits. Because, once the choice is made, a second exchange is not allowed.

  And do not think that shoes constitute a factor of secondary importance in the life of the Lager. Death begins with the shoes; for most of us, they prove to be instruments of torture, which after a few hours of marching cause painful sores that become fatally infected. Anyone who has them is forced to walk as if he were dragging a ball and chain (this explains the strange gait of the army of phantoms that returns, on parade, every evening); he arrives last everywhere, and everywhere receives blows. He cannot escape if he is pursued; his feet swell, and, the more they swell, the more unbearable the friction with the wood and cloth of the shoes becomes. Then only the hospital is left: but to enter the hospital with a diagnosis of dicke Füsse (swollen feet) is extremely dangerous, because it is well-known to all, and especially to the SS, that there is no cure here for that complaint.

  And in all this we have not yet mentioned the work, which is, in its turn, a tangle of laws, taboos, and problems.

  We all work, except those who are ill (to be recognized as ill in itself implies an imposing store of knowledge and experience). Every morning we leave the camp in squads for Buna; every evening, in squads, we return. As for the work, we are divided into about two hundred Kommandos, each of which consists of between fifteen and a hundred and fifty men and is commanded by a Kapo. There are good and bad Kommandos; for the most part, they are assigned to transport, and the work is very hard, especially in winter, if only because it always takes place outside. There are also skilled Kommandos (electricians, smiths, bricklayers, welders, mechanics, concrete layers, etc.), each attached to a specific workshop or section of Buna, and answering more directly to civilian foremen, who are mostly Germans and Poles. Naturally this applies only to the hours of work; for the rest of the day, the skilled workers (there are no more than three or four hundred in all) are not treated differently from the ordinary workers. The assignment of individuals to the various Kommandos is organized by a special office of the Lager, the Arbeitsdienst, which is in constant touch with the civilian management of Buna. The Arbeitsdienst decides on the basis of unknown criteria, often openly on the basis of favoritism or corruption, so if someone manages to find enough to eat, he is practically certain to get a good post at Buna.

  The work schedule varies with the season. All the daylight hours are working hours: hence the workday goes from a minimum in winter (8 a.m.–12 noon and 12:30–4 p.m.) to a maximum in summer (6:30 a.m.–12 noon and 1–6 p.m.). Under no pretext are the Häftlinge allowed to be at work during the hours of darkness or when there is a thick fog, because darkness or fog might provide an opportunity to attempt escape; but they work regularly even if it rains or snows or (as occurs quite frequently) if the fierce Carpathian wind is blowing.

  One Sunday in every two is a regular workday; on the so-called holiday Sundays, instead of working at Buna, we usually work on the upkeep of the Lager, so that days of actual rest are extremely rare.

  Such will be our life. Every day, according to the established rhythm, Ausrücken and Einrücken, go out and come in; work, sleep, and eat; fall ill, and get better or die.

  . . . And for how long? But the old hands laugh at this question: by this question they recognize the new arrivals. They laugh and do not reply. For them, the problem of the distant future grew dim months ago, years ago, having lost all intensity in the face of the far more urgent and concrete problems of the immediate future: how much they will eat today, if it will snow, if they will have to unload coal.

  If we were logical, we would resign ourselves to this evidence, that our fate is utterly unknowable, that every conjecture is arbitrary and has absolutely no foundation in reality. But men are rarely logical when their own fate is at stake; they prefer in every case extreme positions. Thus, depending on our character, some of us are immediately convinced that all is lost, that one cannot survive here and that the end is certain and near; others are convinced that, however hard the life that awaits us, salvation is likely and not far off, and, if we have faith and strength, we will see our homes and our dear ones again. The two classes, pessimists and optimists, are not in fact so distinct: not just because the agnostics are many but because the majority, without memory or consistency, go back and forth between the two extreme positions, according to the moment and the person they are speaking to.

  Here I am, then, on the bottom. One learns quickly enough to wipe out the past and the future if the need is pressing. A fortnight after my arrival I am plagued by that chronic hunger, unknown to free men, which makes us dream at night, and settles in all the limbs of our bodies. I have already learned not to get robbed, and in fact if I find a spoon lying around, a piece of string, a button that I can filch without danger of punishment, I pocket them and consider them mine by full right. I already have those numb sores that will not heal on the tops of my feet. I push carts, I work with a shovel, I get tired in the rain, I shiver in the wind. Already my body is no longer mine: my belly is swollen, my limbs are emaciated, my face is puffy in the morning and hollow in the evening; some of us have yellow skin, others gray. When we don’t meet for three or four days we scarcely recognize one another.

  We Italians had decided to gather every Sunday evening in a corner of the Lager, but we stopped at once, because it was too sad to count our numbers and to find, each time, that we were fewer, and more disfigured and desolate. And it was so tiring to walk those few steps: and then, upon meeting, we would remember and think, and it was better not to.

  2. Inferno Canto XXI:48–49.

  Initiation

  After the first day of capricious transfer from barrack to barrack and from Kommando to Kommando, I am assigned, late one evening, to Block 30, and shown a bunk in which Diena is already sleeping. Diena wakes up, and, although exhausted, makes room for me and greets me in a friendly manner.

  I am not sleepy, or, more accurately, my sleepiness is masked by a state of tension and anxiety of which I have not yet managed to rid myself, and so I talk and talk.

  I have too many things to ask. I’m hungry and when will they distribute the soup tomorrow? And how will I be able to eat it without a spoon? And how can I find a spoon? And where will they send me to work? Diena knows no more than I, and answers with other questions. But from above and below, from near and far, from all corners of the now dark barrack, sleepy and angry voices shout at me: “Ruhe, Ruhe!”

  I understand that they are ordering me to be quiet, but the word is new to me, and since I do not know its meaning and implications, my restlessness increases. The confusion of languages is a fundamental component of the way of life here: one is surrounded by a perpetual Babel, in which everyone shouts orders and threats in languages never heard before, and you’re in trouble if you fail to grasp the meaning. No one has time here, no one has patience, no one listens to you; we latest arrivals instinctively gather in the corners, against the walls, like sheep, to feel that our backs are physically covered.

  So I give up asking questions and soon slip into a tense and bitter sleep. But it is not rest: I feel threatened, besieged, at every moment I am ready to contract in a spasm of self-defense. I dream, and I seem to be sleeping on a road, on a bridge, in a doorway through which many people are passing. And now, oh, so early, the reveille sounds. The entire barrack is shaken to its foundations, the lights go on, all the men around me are bustling in sudden frantic activity. They shake the blankets, raising clouds of fetid dust, they dress with feverish hurry, they run outside into the freezing air half dressed, they rush headlong toward the latrines and the washhouse. Some, bestially, urinate while they run to save time, because within five minutes begins the distribution of bread, of bread-Brot-Broit-chleb-pain-lechem-kenyér, of the holy gray slab that seems gigantic in your neighbor’s hand and in your own so small you could cry. It is a daily hallucination that one gets used to in the end, but at the beginning
it is so irresistible that many of us, after long discussions of our own evident and constant misfortune and the shameless luck of others, finally exchange our rations, at which the illusion is renewed, inverted, leaving everyone discontented and frustrated.

  Bread is also our only money: in the few minutes that elapse between its distribution and its consumption, the Block resounds with claims, quarrels, and flights. It is yesterday’s creditors who are demanding payment, in the brief moment when the debtor is solvent. After which a relative quiet sets in, and many take advantage to go back to the latrines to smoke half a cigarette, or to the washhouse to wash properly.

  The washhouse is far from inviting. It is poorly lit and drafty, and the brick floor is covered by a layer of mud. The water is not drinkable; it has a revolting smell and often fails for many hours. The walls are covered with curious didactic frescoes: for example, there is the good Häftling, shown stripped to the waist, in the act of diligently soaping his shorn, rosy cranium, and the bad Häftling, with an extremely Semitic nose and a greenish color, bundled up in ostentatiously stained clothes with a cap on his head, and cautiously dipping a finger in the water of the washbasin. Under the first is written “So bist du rein” (Like this you are clean), and under the second “So gehst du ein” (Like this you come to a bad end); and lower down, in dubious French but in gothic script: “La propreté, c’est la santé.”

  On the opposite wall an enormous white, red, and black louse stands out, with the caption “Eine Laus, dein Tod” (A louse is your death), and the inspired distich:

  Nach dem Abort, vor dem Essen

  Hände waschen, nicht vergessen.

  After the latrine, before you eat,

  wash your hands, don’t forget.

  For many weeks I considered these warnings about hygiene pure examples of the Teutonic sense of humor, in the style of the dialogue about the truss that had welcomed us on our entry into the Lager. But later I understood that their unknown authors, perhaps without realizing it, were not far from some important truths. In this place it is practically pointless to wash every day in the murky water of the filthy washbasins for purposes of cleanliness and health; but it is extremely important as a symptom of remaining vitality, and necessary as an instrument of moral survival.