The Complete Works of Primo Levi

by Primo Levi

  In fact, perhaps more painful to me than the intransigence of the Arabs, whom we don’t fully understand, but who are certainly one of the parties involved, is the intransigence and the hasty acquiescence of some of their improvised allies. We fear we recognize in their mechanical repetition of rigid formulas and fabricated prejudices an ancient evil that in recent times has done a lot of damage; namely, the habit of obeying without question, of always saying yes, of delegating to others the human right to form one’s own opinion. This is servility and moral anesthesia, and is what ultimately brought some people to the Nuremberg trials and beyond.

  Yes, Israel is an ally of the United States or—to use one of those rigid formulas—it is a pawn of imperialism. This is embarrassing, and not everyone likes it, not in Israel and not here in Italy. In fact, the alliance is liked less and less as the prestige of the United States diminishes, following its ugly adventure in the Far East, and, unfortunately, tends to make us forget that Israel came into being precisely to serve an anti-imperialist function, exploiting and hastening the collapse of British colonialism. Is this alliance determining and constraining? I don’t think so. The Israeli constitution seems to me solidly constructed on a socialist and democratic base, and the interest of the government is directed toward internal matters much more than toward power politics, which, after all, is natural for a small country. Finally, one might claim that every alliance is constraining—and yet haven’t other great countries also been allies of the United States of America without being contaminated? Yes, in war, people will say—but is Israel not in a state of war?

  There is another, I would say specific, reason that Israel has a right to life; and not just to life but also to the friendship and respect of all humanity. We, the human species, we men, perhaps alone in the universe, through a history of hundreds of millennia filled with error and pain, are bringing to completion a great undertaking, which is the peaceful conquest of nature and victory over hunger, suffering, want, and fear. We cannot prevail if we are divided—every war, even local, every discord, distances us from the goal and makes us lose ground that we have laboriously gained. Humanity will be one, or it will not be.

  Well, I dare to suggest that we interpret the history of Israel in this spirit—namely, as sum and symbol of the history of humanity, just as, in the development of every seed, we can discern the sum and the symbol of the species from which the seed came.

  In the endless history of humanity, and in the brief history of Israel, the virtues and the vocation of the human race can be read; we can perceive the overcoming of dispersion, of discord, of differences in language, origin, and race, and their fusion—at first exhausting, then easy—into a civil coexistence. In Israel one discovers the construction of a state, and the restoration of a law, which is a product of courage, intelligence, imagination, and mercy: in a word, it is a human product. One discovers the conquest of the desert, the transformation of nature from enemy to friend, which is the highest vocation of science and its essential role in the destiny of man. Indeed, perhaps in no country in the world is the relation between man and trees more intimate and fruitful than in Israel. And do not think that money suffices for this redemption of the earth. With money alone one can do any number of things—one can corrupt, one can build cannons, one can waste rivers of it, as is the case elsewhere, but one cannot build anything good if goodwill is missing.

  We would not want, we do not want, this corner of land so painfully created from nothing to be destroyed. It will not be; but, if it were, a far greater portion of humanity would perish with it than the bare numbers might make us think. Beyond the factions and the cynical political game, beyond the money and the oil, the land of Israel is an idea. Ideas are precious and few; they must not and cannot be suppressed.

  Speech at an event sponsored by the Jewish community in the

  Turin Synagogue, May 31, 1967; published in

  Resistenza: Giustizia e Libertà 21, no. 7 (July 1967)

  1. Casalegno (1916–1977) was a journalist at La Stampa; he was killed by the Red Brigades.

  2. Inferno X:92: The Ghibellines proposed that Florence, a Guelph city, should be razed (“torre via”) in order to strengthen their party.

  Encounters in the Kibbutzim

  A traveler’s feelings and memories can be traced back to two frames of reference: his country of origin, and the more or less arbitrary image he already had of the country he is visiting.

  I had read and heard a lot about Israel, from the time (more than thirty years ago) when the first Zionist “messengers” came to Italy; I had created an image of it in my mind, and, confronted by the real country, I found the image out of focus and sketchy. I thought of Israel as a corner of Europe, or rather, of the West, set into the oriental world: it is not so, or it is so only in very small part. Israel is not Europe: though heir to all the currents of European thought, Israel visibly lacks that historical sediment that makes Europe one, from Gibraltar to the Urals, and constitutes the framework of all its urban conglomerates. Here “middle age,” which dominates Paris, Berlin, Prague, is missing; everything is extremely new (and often transient), or ancient beyond any of our measures, of an age in which history and the human presence fade into geology.

  Twenty years since statehood, and sixty or seventy years since the first Zionist word, Israel is still a country of pioneers, meaning of practical people, efficient and Spartan, who pay attention to the tangible and don’t care much about manners. You experience here not the art of living but, rather, that of building, of making things grow: the nobility and the soul of Israel have two centers, evident even to the hurried visitor—planting trees and rearing children. Both trees and children are shown to the guest with the sincere and solemn pride of the artisan: “Look, I made this with my own hands.” Trees and children are the future, and in Israel, a newborn country, the sense of the future is alive in everyone’s consciousness, much more than any sense of the past.

  Israel’s past, as we all know, is an illustrious patrimony, unique in the world; prehistory, the Bible, and the Gospels come toward you at every step, in every corner of the country, evocative and profoundly poetic. The Bible inspired the thinking of Zionism’s great prophets, but today the accent falls elsewhere: this extremely young country cannot yet afford much luxury, and living in an aura of myths is a luxury. Israel was born and grew up amid terrifying problems, external and internal. From the pogroms and the Lagers to the redemption of the land, it has traveled an incredibly hard road, with its survival at risk. At times Israel made mistakes, maybe it is still making mistakes, but it acquired experience, and exists, and has the right to exist. Thus, today, the accent falls on the problems of today: adornments, beauty, sweetness, comfort, will come later, when the framework has been consolidated, the borders secured, the refugees settled, the hundred races melded.

  Alas, there were few occasions to speak tranquilly with people in the streets, with workers, children, soldiers, women, with different representatives of the astonishing mosaic of peoples that fill Israel; however, every encounter was memorable. This is a young country, both in its institutions and in its consciousness, and therefore active, simple, energetic, and intemperate. Faith in oneself and in the State, identification with the State—these civic virtues so debilitated in Italy and Europe, so deeply buried by our age-old political skepticism, by our moral desperation—shine here in the light of the first day. The borders are a step away, in every family there is a soldier, everyone is engaged: the government’s decisions are approved or questioned, maybe harshly, but not ridiculed or buried in indifference; there are at least seven daily newspapers, and they are read avidly. What happened to the subtle, happy-sad, tormented, cerebral spirit of Central European Judaism, leavening of Western civilization? One can see no trace of it in the serious, clear, direct gaze of the new generation: one more generation and it will be impossible (as well as useless) to establish whether your interlocutor is originally from the forests of Volhynia or from the ghe
tto in Rome, from the port of Salonika or the desert plains of Yemen.

  The most memorable encounters are in the kibbutzim. The numerical weight of the kibbutz has diminished, primarily because of the rapid increase in the country’s population in the past decade: no more than a hundred thousand people live on kibbutzim today. The goal of modeling the entire country on the collective principle proved to be elusive, which shouldn’t be surprising, but the spirit of the first pioneers, egalitarian and Tolstoyan, survives intact. It has passed the most dangerous test, which is that of prosperity: today, in most of the kibbutzim, people live without serious collective problems, and without any individual problems, because the community, supported by the State, provides liberally for all their needs. But there are no signs of regression: the same meticulous care is taken to avoid the establishment of a dominant class, and the rotation of tasks is rigorously respected, even at the cost of lower productivity; the equality of rights does not permit exceptions. If the numerical weight of the kibbutz is reduced, its moral weight remains very high: the workers in the kibbutz are the intellectual, technical, and spiritual aristocracy of Israel; they are admired by all and have no enemies. The atmosphere of the kibbutz is both severe and serene, one of both joy and commitment. It is the microcosm and the utopia, but it is a utopia, perhaps the only one, that has been realized, that for many decades now has been nourishing itself, has borne fruit, and has caused no casualties.

  Resistenza: Giustizia e Libertà 22, no. 4 (April 1968)

  Foreword to Auschwitz by Léon Poliakov1

  Almost a quarter of a century after the liberation of the Lagers, it is still impossible to read their history with a dispassionate mind. Every passing year contributes to the definition and expansion of the historical proportions of the phenomenon, and it’s now abundantly clear to most of us that the extermination camps of the Third Reich, which annihilated a civilization and created an incalculable sum of pain and death, constitute, along with nuclear arsenals, the dark center of contemporary history.

  All, or almost all, the “what” is now known, including even the most recondite details of the organization of the Lagers, since the care taken by the defeated Nazis to destroy the traces was not sufficient. Much less, on the other hand, is known about the “whys”: for what reasons and causes, proximate or distant, a gigantic factory of death could come into being on this civilized continent, and function with atrocious efficiency until the German collapse, remains enigmatic. The shock of the Allied troops when, incredulous and overwhelmed, they first penetrated that nether world has not disappeared, and while the explanations offered by historians, sociologists, psychologists may be perceptive and clever, none of them are truly satisfying.

  It is not a rebuke to Poliakov’s diligence or to his documentation (both indisputable) to observe that his work, introduced here, doesn’t solve the enigma: the author himself, in the chapter “Auschwitz and Germany,” implicitly admits it, and, besides, no essay, no treatise could solve it, because what happened at Auschwitz can’t be comprehended, in fact, maybe it shouldn’t be comprehended. Let me explain: to “comprehend” an intention or human action means (etymologically as well) to contain it, to contain the author, put oneself in his place, identify with him. Now—and for the same reason reading these pages distresses us—we will never be able, no normal man will ever for an instant be able, to identify with the revolting human specimens (Himmler, Göring, Goebbels, Eichmann, Höss, and many others) abundantly cited here. It distresses us, and at the same time brings us relief: because it’s good, it’s desirable, that the words of these men, and unfortunately also their works, not be comprehensible. They shouldn’t be understood: they are extra-human words and deeds, or, rather, contra-human, without historical precedents, scarcely comparable to the cruelest events of the biological struggle for existence. War can be traced back to that struggle, but Auschwitz has nothing to do with war, it is not an episode of war, it is not an extreme form of war. War has always been a grim fact; it is terrible, but it is in us, an archetype, its seed is in the crime of Cain, in every conflict between individuals. It is the extension of anger, and who does not know anger, who has not felt it in himself, maybe repressed, or maybe, rather, elaborated and enjoyed?

  But in Auschwitz there is no anger—Auschwitz is not in us, it is not an archetype, it is outside of man. The authors of Auschwitz, who are presented to us here, are not racked by anger or delirium: they are diligent, tranquil, vulgar, and flat; their discussions, statements, testimony, even posthumous, are cold and empty. We can’t understand them: the effort of understanding, of tracing them to their source, seems vain and sterile. We hope that the man capable of commenting on them does not appear too soon—the man who can explain to us how, in the heart of our Europe and our century, the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” was turned upside down.

  And yet every civilized man is bound to know that Auschwitz existed, and what was perpetrated there: if to comprehend is impossible, to know is necessary. In that sense, Poliakov’s vast historical work is necessary, and especially this collection of documents, which is its summation. Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is around us, in the air. The plague is over but the infection spreads: it would be foolish to deny it. In this book its symptoms are described: the denial of human solidarity, obtuse or cynical indifference to the suffering of others, the abdication of the intellect and the moral sense in the face of authority, and, mainly, at the root of it all, a tide of cowardice, an abysmal cowardice, masked as warrior virtue, love of country, and loyalty to an idea. We cannot read without dispiriting surprise the abject, servile voices quoted here, of the Nobel Prize–winning physicist Johannes Stark, of the philosopher Heidegger, Sartre’s teacher, of Cardinal Faulhaber, the supreme Catholic authority in Germany.

  The plague is over, but Bormann and Dr. Mengele live undisturbed in South America; the Austrian and German courts provide increasing numbers of outrageous absolutions and half-absolutions; Globke enjoys a respectable pension after having been for many years Adenauer’s secretary; deportation and torture have reappeared in Algeria, in Stalinist Russia, and elsewhere; in Vietnam an entire people is threatened with destruction.

  As long as this is happening around us, the reading of these bitter pages is a duty for us all. They provoke bewilderment, despair, and retrospective fury, but they are a vital nourishment for anyone who resolves to keep watch over his own conscience and that of his country.

  Foreword to Léon Poliakov, Auschwitz (Rome: Veutro, 1968)

  1. In 1964, Léon Poliakov, a French historian who studied the archives of the Third Reich, published a collection of documents and testimony on Auschwitz; four years later, Levi wrote this foreword to the Italian edition.

  1972 Preface: To the Young

  When this book was written, in 1946, many things were not yet known about the Lagers. It was not known that in Auschwitz alone millions of men, women, and children were exterminated with scientific meticulousness, and that not only their belongings and their clothes were “utilized” but also their bones, their teeth, and even their hair (at the liberation of the camp seven tons of hair were found). Nor was it known that the victims of the entire concentration-camp system added up to 9 or 10 million. Above all, it was not known that Nazi Germany and, with it, all the occupied countries (including Italy) formed a single monstrous web of slave camps. A map of Europe of the time makes one dizzy. In Germany alone, there were hundreds of Lagers in the strict sense (that is, antechambers of death, as they are described in this book), and to that should be added thousands of camps belonging to other categories; the Italian soldiers who were interned alone numbered around 600,000. According to an estimate by William Shirer (in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich), in 1944 there were at least 9 million forced laborers in Germany.

  From the pages of this very book the intimate bond between German heavy industry and the administration of the Lagers emerges; certainly it was not a coincidence that, of all places, Auschwitz was chosen
as the site of the enormous industrial plants of Buna. This was a return to a pharaonic economy and, at the same time, a wise planning decision: it was manifestly desirable for the grand works and the slave camps to be side by side.

  Thus the camps were not a marginal and accessory phenomenon; the German war industry was founded on them. They were an essential institution of fascistic Europe; and the Nazi authorities made no secret of the fact that the system would be preserved, and in fact extended and perfected, in the case of an Axis victory. They openly projected a New Order based on an “aristocracy”: on one side a dominant class consisting of the Master Race (that is, the Germans themselves) and on the other an immense flock of slaves, from the Atlantic to the Urals, to work and obey. It would have been the full realization of fascism: the consecration of privilege, the definitive establishment of non-equality and non-freedom.