The Complete Works of Primo Levi

by Primo Levi

  Alberto made an ingenious proposal. The cookies were the most cumbersome item and we had them hidden all over. I even kept some inside the lining of my cap and had to be careful not to crush them whenever I had to take the cap off in a hurry to salute passing SS. The cookies weren’t very tasty, but they looked good; we could divide them into two packs and give them as presents to the Kapo and to the oldest prisoner of our barrack. According to Alberto, that would be the most profitable investment: we would gain prestige and the two “prominents,” even without a formal agreement, would reward us with a variety of favors. We would consume the rest of the parcel ourselves, in small daily rations and in the greatest possible secrecy.

  But in the Lager the crowding, the close living, the gossip, and the confusion were such that the secret was short-lived. We realized this within a few days: companions and Kapos were looking at us with different eyes. Indeed, they were looking at us the way you look at something or someone who stands out from the ordinary, who is no longer part of the background but is in the limelight. Depending on the degree of sympathy they felt for “the two Italians,” they would look at us with envy, with tacit understanding, with satisfaction, with open desire. Mendi, a Slovak rabbi who was a friend of mine, said to me with a wink: “Mazel tov” (“good luck”), the beautiful Yiddish and Jewish expression used to congratulate someone on a happy occasion. We were both relieved and worried by the fact that many knew or had guessed our luck: we had to be on our guard. At any rate, we agreed to speed up the pace of consumption: what is eaten cannot be stolen.

  On Christmas Day, we worked as usual. Rather, since the lab was closed, I was sent with the others to clear away rubble and transport bags of chemicals from a storehouse that had been bombed to an undamaged one. Returning to the camp in the evening, I went to the washhouse. As I still carried in my pockets a good amount of chocolate and dried milk, I waited until a spot became free in the farthest corner from the entrance. I hung my jacket on a nail right behind me; no one could come close without my seeing him. As I started to wash, I saw out of the corner of my eye that the jacket was rising. I turned around, but it was already too late; the jacket, with all its contents, and with my matriculation number stitched on its breast, was now out of reach. Someone had lowered a string and a hook from the small window above the nail. I ran outside, half naked as I was, but no one was there. No one had seen anything; no one knew anything. On top of it all, I was left without my jacket. I had to go to the quartermaster of the barracks to confess my fault, because in the Lager to be robbed was a fault. He gave me another jacket, but instructed me to find a needle and thread, no matter how; I was to unstitch the matriculation number from my trousers and stitch it right away on the new jacket, otherwise “bekommst du fünfundzwanzig,” I would get twenty-five blows with a stick.

  We redivided the contents of Alberto’s pockets; he was unruffled, and he pulled out his best philosophical repertoire. We had consumed more than half of the parcel, hadn’t we? And the rest wasn’t totally wasted; some other hungry inmate was celebrating Christmas at our expense, maybe blessing us. Besides, we could be sure of one thing: it was our last Christmas of war and prison.

  Published privately by Sergio Grandini with drawings by Imre Reiner (Lugano, 1984); later in Triangolo Rosso, no. 11–12, December 1986

  Can Poetry Get Along with the Computer?

  Poetry undoubtedly existed before writing, and we are struck by a reverent emotion in observing the close kinship between the poetry of our civilization and the poetry of civilizations far removed from us in time and space: Aztec poetry, Indian poetry, the poetry of ancient Egypt. Thus poetry passed through tens of centuries and was clothed in as many writing techniques—from engraving on stone or clay to parchment, papyrus, the Chinese brush, the wax tablet, the goose quill, the fountain pen or the ballpoint pen, the typewriter. It does not seem to be affected by manual skill: the poetic image originates someplace in our brain and in order to be “recorded” works its way through different obstacles—all of them scarcely relevant. So if we confine ourselves to using the computer as a writing tool—that is, to the various systems of word processing—there is no incompatibility. On the contrary, the ease with which one can erase, correct, add, and replace facilitates the flow from mind to paper. Maybe it even makes things too easy; the absence of barriers (writing on a screen is much less laborious than by any other means) can lead to verbosity and be harmful to content. However, the opposite is also true: erasing is instantaneous and leaves no scars on the paper; carving out from a solid block is easy and painless.

  As we all know, however, the computer can do much more. It has already proved valuable in so-called quantitative linguistics, saving the researchers work by counting the frequency of use of a given word by a certain author or in a certain epoch. There is hope, I don’t know how well founded, that in this way it will be possible to determine accurately the authorship of controversial texts; here the psychoanalysts lurk, patiently waiting for their feeding time, to learn, that is, how many times, respectively, Dante, Leopardi, and Montale used the word “water,” and whether this frequency is related to their birth or early childhood traumas. The computer is ideally suited for this sorry job. Poetry cannot be made by such methods—but, rather, the autopsy, the postmortem, of poetry.

  During the creative process, the computer can point out rhymes, repetitions, alliterations, and anaphoras, whether intended or not; in a text, it can transform a word immediately into its synonym or its opposite, or correct its spelling; it can also serve as a storehouse of ideas, a bridge between ideas, and perhaps perform other miracles that a novice like me (I bought a computer only recently, for word processing) can’t even imagine. In my view, however, all these functions are just extras; they will never turn a layman into a poet nor will they enhance a poet’s inspiration, though they won’t pollute it, either. I believe that the mild itch many feel when they hear poetry and computers mentioned in the same sentence is due to the ugly sound of “computer” in Italian: computers, accounting, invoices, VAT, statements of account, debts, credits, bank loans—conscious or subconscious, the association of ideas is immediate. Nor is the more specific term “word processor” more appealing. But these are issues of nomenclature. Clearly, the question that I am trying to answer has a false bottom, a trap. The computer is almost forty years old and its progress has been faster and more surprising than that of any other invention; it has successfully replaced the human brain in computation, planning, memorization, filing of data. Today it plays chess and bridge, although not with much elegance; it simulates piloting a plane or a car; it guides spaceships in search of “difficult-to-accept truths”1 and missiles in search of planetary troubles. By now, there isn’t a bar where dozens of teenagers aren’t playing videogames. Therefore, the computer can do anything; therefore, it can even write poetry.

  I’m well aware that making negative forecasts isn’t prudent; distinguished scientists declared that testing flying machines “heavier than air” was absurd only ten years before their triumph; others, only a generation ago, predicted that a computer, assuming it could be built, would be as tall as a cathedral, would consume the energy of Niagara Falls, and would cost as much as an aircraft carrier. However, while knowing next to nothing about computer theory or poetic theories, and hoping not to say something foolish, I venture to state that a computer that can produce motu proprio original and worthy poetry will never be built. Bad poetry, certainly: the moment will come (it could very well be today, if only someone would spend time on such a futile undertaking) when it will compose hendecasyllables correctly accented and not without meaning, or maybe even hexameters in conformity with the rules of Latin prosody. They may provoke surprise and/or laughter for their resemblance to human verse, but no poetry in the true sense of the word will be generated in this way.

  Why? I can’t provide a rigorous explanation, but I believe that computers can only carry out logical activities, or, when so programmed, make random (“r
andomized,” to use their language) choices, and poetry is more than logic and chance; it may contain both, but it’s broader. It contains other things: deep or subtle but necessarily new associations; references to archetypes; hard-to-define connections between expression and meaning, between music and vision and words. Poetry can evoke, deliberately or spontaneously, illustrious precedents, such that, drawing on a beautiful title by the French poet Paul Éluard, one can speak of “poetry uninterrupted” by the centuries and by geographical boundaries, an essentially unitary poetic patrimony that has accompanied humankind through its history and its travails.

  The computer seems to me to be an excellent tool for clear and distinct tasks. Poetry isn’t one of them: it is fluid, oblique, continuous, surrounded by halos and shadows. It is no accident that, while poems have been written for thousands of years, no definition has yet been formulated, no “list of specifications” has been universally accepted. In short: poetry is compatible with the computer, but has little to gain from it and nothing to fear.

  POST SCRIPTUM: I answered like an oracle; now I begin to suspect that I spoke out of jealousy and fear. Like a Luddite, in the same spirit in which, in the early nineteenth century, the followers of Ned Ludd, afraid that their jobs would be lost, destroyed the new weaving machines. Well, then, I say it loud and clear: if I ever witness the birth of a machine for writing poetry that guarantees an output of reasonable quality and quantity and is not too expensive—I will buy one. But first I will seek the advice of a lawyer, human or electronic, to find out whether I am authorized to sign the poems composed by the machine—and who gets the royalties.

  Answer to the question “La poesia può andare d’accordo col computer?” (“Can poetry get along with the computer?”), in Genius, January 1985

  1. Dante, Paradise X:136.

  Why Revisit These Images

  We survivors of the Nazi concentration camps have had many occasions to realize that words are of little use in describing our experience. They do not work well owing to “bad reception,” since we now live in the era of recorded, multiplied, telecast images, and the public, especially the young, is less and less inclined to rely on written information. However, there is another reason that words do not work well, and that is “bad transmission.” In our oral or written accounts we frequently use expressions such as “indescribable,” “beyond words,” “words can’t tell . . . ,” “a new language is needed.” Indeed, this was how we felt every day in the camps. If we were ever to return home and wanted to tell our story, we wouldn’t be able to find the words: everyday language can describe everyday experiences, but this was a different world, here we would need a language “from this other world,” a language born here.

  With this exhibit, we have tried to adopt the language of images, aware of its power. As you can see, the images here are revealing but not touched up, not “artistic”; they show the Lagers, in particular Auschwitz, Birkenau, and the sinister rice mill of San Sabba, as they appear today. It seems to me that these images confirm what information theory says: an image “tells” twenty, a hundred times as much as a written page of the same size. Moreover, it is accessible to all, even to the illiterate and to the foreigner; it’s the best Esperanto. These observations aren’t new; they were formulated by Leonardo in his treatise on painting; yet, applied to the unspeakable universe of the Lagers, they acquire a stronger meaning. More and better than words, these images reflect the impact that the camps have on the visitor, whether they are well or poorly preserved, whether or not they have been transformed into different places or sanctuaries. And, surprisingly, this impact is more profound and more disturbing on those who were never there than it is on us, the few survivors.

  Even today, for many of us compassion and respect are overcome by the old trauma, the scalding memories, and hence the need to repress. Had we been asked at the time of liberation: “What do you want to do with these infected barracks, these nightmarish barbed-wire fences, these rows of latrines, the ovens, the gallows?” I think most of us would have answered: “Get rid of everything. Level everything, raze it to the ground along with Nazism and all that is German.” We would have answered like that (many answered like that in deeds, pulling down the barbed-wire fences and burning the barracks), and we would have been wrong. Such horrors should not be erased. As years and decades go by, these remains do not lose their significance as monuments-admonishments; on the contrary, they increase it. They show us better than any treatise or memorial how inhuman Hitler’s regime was, even in its scenographic and architectural choices. At the entrance to the Birkenau camp, so well portrayed here in the bleakness of the snow and the timeless bareness of the landscape, we can read a Dantesque “abandon all hope.” Nothing conveys better than this image the repetitive obsession of the lights that shine on the no-man’s-land between the electric fence and the barbed wire. Different, but no less striking, are the pictures of San Sabba. It was in fact only a rice mill, a plant for processing rice that had been built when much of the grain imported from the Far East was unloaded in Trieste. In the conversion of that plant into a place of torture we can see a theatrical and malign imagination. The choice of those high, massive, blind walls was not an accident. Visiting San Sabba today, or seeing it in the images that are reproduced here, reminds us that, besides being a fanatical megalomaniac, Hitler was also a failed architect. The scenography of the huge parades was an essential part of Nazi ritual (and of its appeal to the German people). Speer, the equivocal genius of management and the official architect of the Thousand Year Reich, was the Führer’s closest confidant and the organizer of the cruel exploitation of the free labor provided by the Lagers.

  Triangolo Rosso, no. 3–4, March–April 1985

  Tell Me If This Is a Fortunate Jew

  Memoirs of a Fortunate Jew:1 the title of this intelligent and thoroughly considered book is subtly ironic. Is it enough to escape slaughter and avoid suffering and grief to call yourself lucky? In relative terms, certainly yes. In absolute terms, I leave the judgment to the reader, especially the author’s counterpart, that is, the young Italian of today, his life safe and his identity secure.

  As a matter of fact, this is what almost every page of the book is about: a constant, and unfinished, search for identity. Its author, Vittorio Segre, is a well-known academic, diplomat, and journalist with broad personal and political experience; yet the book shows how much it cost him. Atypical within atypical Italian Judaism, he was born in Turin in 1922, “a month after the March on Rome.” His father, a veteran of the First World War and a wealthy landowner, joins triumphant fascism without any difficulty; Vittorio knows no alternatives, and in fascism he sees “the only natural form of existence.”

  In the family, there are only faint remnants of Judaism: some prayers on the holy days, some dietary traditions. The mother, very beautiful and pale, was brought up in a convent and is constantly wavering between the two religions—both of them appeal to her romantic soul. There is no trace of Jewish culture; Vittorio finds it “more convenient” to be a Jew rather than a Christian, as this spares him the nuisance of Sunday Mass.

  Vittorio, too, is childishly romantic. He likes skiing and horseback riding; he has inherited his father’s love of action and his mother’s contemplative fragility. The 1938 racial laws have the violent impact of a hurricane on this totally assimilated family. Vittorio has never been a Zionist; he barely knows the meaning of the word. Yet adventure appeals to him, and at the age of fifteen he tries and fails to volunteer in the Foreign Legion, and then he leaves for Palestine, at the time under the British Mandate; he is one of the first Italian Jews to do so.

  Here the book becomes tense and enlightening. The country where the young man disembarks is not “the land flowing with milk and honey.” It is poor and divided; it is suffocatingly hot and full of flies, sand, and wind. Traces of the disastrous Ottoman government, ancient Arab poverty, the heritage of the Crusades, the arrogant (but efficient and fair) British administration, an
d the indomitable persistence of the Zionist settlers of Russian, Polish, and German origin coexist there. At times we recognize in the book the richly varied environment and the impartiality of judgment that characterize Forster’s A Passage to India.

  The young Italian, indifferent to politics, a Jew with no roots and a former member of the Fascist youth group, speaks little English and knows neither Hebrew nor Arabic; but even the best polyglot would feel lost in that Babel of languages, ethnicities, and religions. He joins a kibbutz and takes agronomy classes, yet he finds it difficult to put up with the discomforts and, most of all, the inaction: the world is at war, the Jews of Europe are being sentenced to death. It’s their fault, the Zionists tell him: they should have made up their minds earlier and “come out” to the land of Israel as we did. Vittorio doesn’t share these certainties; he feels guilty.

  Even in Israel Judaism, held together by frantic activism, is hopelessly fragmented at the ideological level. There are Orthodox Jews, who reject the secular state of the majority Zionists; socialists, who see the kibbutz as the first, exciting egalitarian experiment; nationalists, Communists, and revisionists, who preach violence against both the Arabs and the British; princes and servants, false philosophers and true holy men.

  Vittorio is alone, uprooted, and disoriented. He longs for action but realizes that in action he is only seeking compensation for his cultural deficiency. In that jumbled country, the British are a solid link: he admires them because they represent law and order, he loathes them because they have blocked Jewish immigration, he envies them because they are fighting a fierce and stubborn war against the Satan of Berlin. Vittorio is not yet twenty years old, he is afraid, but he is also afraid to be afraid; in 1941 he fulfills his dreams of glory by enlisting in the clandestine Jewish army and, shortly afterward, under cover, in the British Army.