by Primo Levi
I must confess: after only a week of prison, the instinct for cleanliness disappeared in me. I wander aimlessly around the washhouse, and suddenly I see my friend Steinlauf, who is almost fifty, stripped to the waist, scrubbing his neck and shoulders with little success (he has no soap) but with great energy. Steinlauf sees me and greets me, and without preamble asks me severely why I do not wash. Why should I wash? Would I be better off than I am? Would I be more pleasing to someone? Would I live a day, an hour longer? I would probably live a shorter time, because washing is work, a waste of energy and warmth. Doesn’t Steinlauf know that after half an hour with the coal sacks every difference between him and me will have disappeared? The more I think about it, the more washing one’s face in our condition seems a stupid chore, even frivolous: a mechanical habit, or, worse, a grim repetition of an extinct rite. We will all die, we are all about to die. If they give me ten minutes between reveille and work, I want to devote them to something else, to withdraw into myself, to take stock, or perhaps look at the sky and think that I may be looking at it for the last time; or even to let myself live, to indulge in the luxury of an idle moment.
But Steinlauf contradicts me. He has finished washing and is now drying himself with his cloth jacket, which he was holding rolled up between his knees and will soon put on. And without interrupting the operation he administers a full-scale lesson.
It grieves me now that I have forgotten his plain, clear words, the words of ex-Sergeant Steinlauf of the Austro-Hungarian Army, Iron Cross in the 1914–18 war. It grieves me because it means that I have to translate his uncertain Italian and his quiet speech, the speech of a good soldier, into my language of an incredulous man. But this was the sense, not forgotten then or later: that precisely because the Lager 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 almost 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. So we must certainly wash our faces without soap in dirty water and dry ourselves on our jackets. We must polish our shoes, not because the rules prescribe it but for dignity and propriety. We must walk erect, without dragging our feet, not in homage to Prussian discipline but to remain alive, to not begin to die.
These things Steinlauf, a man of goodwill, told me: strange things to my unaccustomed ear, understood and accepted only in part, and softened by an easier, more flexible, and blander doctrine, which for centuries has drawn breath on the other side of the Alps, and according to which, among other things, there is no greater vanity than to force oneself to swallow whole moral systems elaborated by others, under another sky. No, the wisdom and virtue of Steinlauf, certainly good for him, is not enough for me. In the face of this complicated netherworld my ideas are confused; is it really necessary to elaborate a system and put it into practice? Or would it not be better to acknowledge that one has no system?
Ka-Be
All the days seem alike, and it’s not easy to count them. For I don’t know how many days now we’ve been going back and forth, in teams of two, from the railway to the warehouse—a hundred meters over thawing ground. To the warehouse bent under the load, back with arms hanging at our sides, not speaking.
Around us, everything is hostile. Above us, the malevolent clouds chase one another to separate us from the sun; on all sides the bleakness of iron in torment closes in on us. We have never seen its boundaries, but we feel all around us the evil presence of the barbed wire that isolates us from the world. And on the scaffoldings, on the trains being shunted, on the roads, in the pits, in the offices, men and more men, slaves and masters, the masters slaves themselves. Fear motivates the former, hatred the latter, every other force is silent. All are our enemies or our rivals.
No, I honestly don’t feel that my companion of today, yoked with me under the same load, is either enemy or rival.
He is Null Achtzehn. He is not called anything but that, Zero Eighteen, the last three figures of his entry number: as if everyone were aware that only a man is worthy of a name, and that Null Achtzehn is no longer a man. I think that even he has forgotten his name—certainly he acts as if this were so. When he speaks, when he looks around, he gives the impression of being empty inside, no more than a husk, like the slough of some insect that one finds on the edge of a pond, attached to the rocks by a thread and shaken by the wind.
Null Achtzehn is very young, which is a grave danger. Not only because it’s harder for boys than for men to withstand fatigue and fasting but, even more, because long training in the struggle of each against all is needed to survive here, training that young people rarely have. Null Achtzehn is not even particularly weak, but all avoid working with him. He is indifferent to the point where he doesn’t trouble to avoid labor or blows or to search for food. He carries out every order he is given, and it’s predictable that when they send him to his death he will go with the same total indifference.
He doesn’t have even the rudimentary cunning of a draft horse, which stops pulling just before it reaches exhaustion; he pulls or carries or pushes as long as his strength allows, then gives way suddenly, without a word of warning, without lifting his sad, opaque eyes from the ground. He reminds me of the sled dogs in books by Jack London, who labor until their last breath and die on the track.
But, since the rest of us try by every possible means to avoid excess effort, Null Achtzehn is the one who works more than anybody. Because of this, and because he is a dangerous companion, no one wants to work with him; and since, on the other hand, no one wants to work with me, because I am weak and clumsy, it often happens that we find ourselves paired.
As we return once again, hands empty, from the warehouse, dragging our feet, an engine whistles briefly and cuts off our path. Happy at the enforced delay, Null Achtzehn and I stop; bent and ragged, we wait for the train cars to pass slowly by.
. . . Deutsche Reichsbahn. Deutsche Reichsbahn. SNCF. Two huge Russian freight cars with the hammer and sickle incompletely worn off. Then Cavalli 8, Uomini 40, Tara, Portata:3 an Italian car . . . Oh, to climb inside, into a corner, well hidden under the coal, and stay there, quiet and still in the dark, to listen endlessly to the rhythm of the rails, stronger than hunger or weariness; until, at a certain moment, the train stopped and I would feel the warm air and smell the hay and get out, into the sun; then I would lie down on the ground to kiss the earth, as one reads in books, with my face in the grass. And a woman would pass by, and ask, “Who are you?” in Italian, and I would tell her my story in Italian, and she would understand, and would give me food and shelter. And she would not believe the things I tell her, and I would show her the number on my arm, and then she would believe.
. . . It’s over. The last car has passed, and, as if a curtain had been raised, there before our eyes is the pile of pig-iron supports, the Kapo standing on the pile with a switch in his hand, and our haggard companions, coming and going in pairs.
Alas for the dreamer: the moment of consciousness that accompanies waking is the most acute suffering. But it doesn’t happen to us often, and they are not long dreams. We are only weary beasts.
Once again we’re at the foot of the pile. Mischa and the Galician lift a support and place it roughly on our shoulders. Their job is the least tiring, so they show excess zeal in order to keep it: they shout at companions who dawdle, urge them on, admonish them, drive the work at an unbearable pace. This fills me with anger, although I already know that it is in the normal order of things for the privileged to oppress the unprivileged. The social structure of the camp is based on this human law.
This time it’s my turn to walk in front. The support is heavy but short; at every step I feel behind me Null Achtzehn’s feet stumbl
ing against mine, since he is unable or can’t be bothered to keep pace with me.
Twenty steps, we have arrived at the railroad track, there is a cable to climb over. The load is awkwardly placed, something is not right, it seems to be slipping from my shoulder. Fifty steps, sixty. The door of the warehouse: the same distance again, and we can put it down. Enough is enough, I can’t go any farther, the entire load is now weighing on my arm. I can’t endure the pain and exhaustion any longer: I shout, I try to turn around, just in time to see Null Achtzehn trip and drop the whole thing.
If I had had the agility I used to have, I could have jumped backward: instead, here I am on the ground, with all my muscles contracted, blind with pain, the wounded foot clasped in my hands. The corner of the piece of iron has cut the top of my left foot.
For a moment, everything is blank in the giddiness of pain. When I manage to look around, Null Achtzehn is still standing there, he hasn’t moved; hands in his sleeves, he doesn’t say a word, he stares at me without expression. Mischa and the Galician arrive, speaking Yiddish to each other, and give me incomprehensible advice. Templer and David and the others arrive; they take advantage of the distraction to stop work. The Kapo arrives, distributes kicks, punches, and abuse, and our comrades disperse like chaff in the wind. Null Achtzehn puts his hand to his nose and then stares vacantly at the blood-streaked hand. All I get is two blows to the head, of the sort that don’t hurt because they stun you.
The incident is closed. I find that, for good or ill, I can stand up, so the bone must not be broken. I don’t dare take off the shoe for fear of reawakening the pain, and also because I know that the foot will swell and I will be unable to put the shoe on again.
The Kapo sends me to take the Galician’s place on the pile, and he, glaring at me, takes my place alongside Null Achtzehn; but already the English prisoners are passing, it will soon be time to return to the camp.
During the march I do my best to walk quickly, but I can’t keep up. The Kapo assigns Null Achtzehn and Finder to support me as far as the procession before the SS, and finally (fortunately there is no roll call this evening) I am in the barrack and can throw myself on the bunk and breathe.
Maybe it’s the heat, maybe the fatigue of the march, but the pain has begun again, together with a strange sensation of wetness in the wounded foot. I take off my shoe: it is full of blood, by now congealed and kneaded into the mud and the shreds of a rag I found a month ago, and which I use as a foot pad, one day on the right, one day on the left.
This evening, after the soup, I’ll go to Ka-Be.
• • •
Ka-Be is the abbreviation of Krankenbau, the infirmary. There are eight barracks, exactly like the others in the camp, but separated by a wire fence. They permanently hold a tenth of the camp’s population, but few of us stay longer than two weeks and none more than two months: within these limits we are obliged to die or be cured. Those who show signs of improvement recover in Ka-Be, those who show signs of getting worse are sent from Ka-Be to the gas chambers.
All this because we, fortunately for us, belong to the category of “economically useful Jews.”
I have never been to Ka-Be or to the Clinic, and it is all new to me.
There are two clinics, Medical and Surgical. In front of the door, exposed to the night and the wind, are two long lines of shadows. Some have need only of a bandage or a pill, others ask to be examined; some show death in their faces. Those at the front of both lines are barefoot and ready to enter. Others, as their turn approaches, contrive in the middle of the crush to loosen the haphazard laces and wire threads of their shoes and to unfold the precious foot pads without tearing them: not too early, so as not to stand pointlessly in the mud with bare feet; not too late, so as not to miss their turn to enter, because it is strictly forbidden to enter Ka-Be with shoes on. A gigantic French Häftling, sitting in a booth between the doors of the two clinics, enforces obedience to the prohibition. He is one of the few French officials in the camp. And do not think that to spend one’s day among muddy and broken shoes is a small privilege: only consider how many enter Ka-Be with shoes and leave with no further need of them. . . .
When my turn comes, I manage miraculously to take off my shoes and my rags without losing any of them, without letting my bowl or gloves be stolen, without losing my balance, all the while holding on to my cap, since for no reason can you wear it upon entering a barrack.
I leave the shoes at the shoe deposit and am given the appropriate receipt, after which, barefoot and limping, my hands encumbered by all my poor possessions, which I dare not leave anywhere, I am admitted inside and join a new line, which ends in the examination room.
In this line you undress progressively, so as to be naked when you arrive at the head of it, for there a male nurse sticks a thermometer in your armpit. If someone is dressed he misses his turn and gets back in line. Everybody has to be given the thermometer, even if he has only a skin disease or a toothache.
In this way it’s assured that no one who is not seriously ill will submit to this complicated ritual on a whim.
My turn finally arrives and I am brought before the doctor. The nurse takes out the thermometer and presents me: “Nummer 174517, kein Fieber.” I do not need a thorough examination: I am immediately declared Arztvormelder. I don’t know what it means, but this is certainly not the place to ask questions. I am thrown out, I retrieve my shoes, and I go back to the barrack.
Chaim rejoices with me: I have a good wound, it doesn’t seem dangerous, and it guarantees me a reasonable period of rest. I will spend the night in the barrack with the others, but tomorrow morning, instead of going to work, I will have to go back to the doctors for a definitive examination: this is what Artzvormelder means. Chaim is experienced in these matters, and he thinks that I’ll probably be admitted to Ka-Be tomorrow. Chaim is my bed companion and I have blind faith in him. He is Polish, a religious Jew, a student of rabbinical law. He is about my age, a watchmaker by profession, and here in Buna works as a precision mechanic; thus he is among the few who are able to preserve the dignity and self-assurance that come from practicing a trade one has been trained for.
And so it happened. After reveille and bread, I was called outside with three others from my barrack. We were led to a corner of Roll Call Square, where there was a long line, all of today’s Artzvormelder; someone came and took away my bowl, spoon, cap, and gloves. The others laughed: didn’t I know that I had to hide them or leave them with someone, or, best of all, sell them, since they can’t be taken to Ka-Be? Then they look at my number and shake their heads: any sort of stupidity is to be expected from one with such a high number.
Then they counted us, they made us undress outside in the cold, they took our shoes, they counted us again, they shaved the hair off our face, head, and body, they counted us yet again, and they made us take a shower. Then an SS man came, looked at us without interest, stopped in front of a man with a large hydrocele, and set him apart. After which they counted us another time and made us take another shower, although we were still wet from the first and some were shaking with fever.
We are now ready for the definitive examination. Outside the window one can see the white sky and sometimes the sun; in this country one can stare at it, through the clouds, as if through smoked glass. Its position indicates that it must be past two o’clock. By now it’s farewell soup, and we have been standing for ten hours and naked for six.
This second medical examination is also extraordinarily rapid: the doctor (he wears striped clothes like ours, but over them he has a white coat, with the number sewn on it, and he is much fatter than we are) looks at my swollen and bloody foot and touches it, at which I cry out in pain. Then he says: “Aufgenommen, Block 23.” I stand there with my mouth open, waiting for some other indication, but someone pulls me backward brutally, throws a coat over my bare shoulders, gives me a pair of sandals, and drives me out into the open.
A hundred meters away is Block 23; written on it
is “Schonungsblock.” Who knows what it means? Inside they take off my coat and sandals, and I’m naked again and last in a line of human skeletons—today’s patients.
I stopped trying to understand long ago. As far as I’m concerned, I am by now so tired of standing on my wounded foot, still untended, so hungry and frozen, that nothing interests me anymore. This might easily be my last day and this room the gas chamber that everyone talks about, but what can I do about it? I might just as well lean against the wall, close my eyes, and wait.
My neighbor must not be Jewish. He is not circumcised and, besides (this is one of the few things that I have so far learned), such fair skin, such a huge face and body are characteristics of non-Jewish Poles. He is a whole head taller than me, but he has quite a cordial face, such as have only those who do not suffer from hunger.
I tried to ask him if he knows when they will let us enter. He turns to the nurse, who resembles him like a twin and is smoking in a corner; they talk and laugh together without replying, as if I were not there. Then one of them takes my arm and looks at my number, and they laugh even harder. Everyone knows that the 174000s are the Italian Jews, the well-known Italian Jews, who arrived two months ago, all lawyers, all university graduates, who were more than a hundred and are now only forty; who don’t know how to work, and let their bread be stolen, and are hit from morning to night. The Germans call them zwei linke Hände (two left hands), and even the Polish Jews despise them, because they don’t speak Yiddish.