An exploration of both the innocence and guilt of the victims and their perpetrators at Auschwitz as depicted by Primo Levi and Christopher Browning.
Written in 2009; 1,583 words; 6 sources; MLA; $ 51.95
Paper Summary:
This paper discusses how Primo Levi, in his books "Survival in Auschwitz" and "The Drowned and the Saved", and Christopher Browning, in his book "Ordinary Men", write with merciless truth about the human conditions and experiences in the Lagers or Nazi concentration camps. The paper explains that, through these sources, Levi and Browning help us understand that the polar opposites of good and evil may be more of a blended mixture. As such, we can begin to understand the horrific conditions and the human characteristics comprised in both the victims and perpetrators that ultimately lead to the Holocaust, this catastrophic event in our global history.
From the Paper:
"Levi furthers his theory of the gray zone in his book The Drowned and the Saved. Levi portrays the Lager, a concentration camp confined with subhuman conditions, as the sad historical example of humanity cruelty, but upon close examination, Levi concludes that both victims and executioners belong to the same "semenza" (original seed) as well as the same human nature. The most controversial aspect of Levi's gray zone is Levi's refusal to claim that victims were sanctified by their suffering, and that the perpetrators were monsters. Levi asserts that the prisoners were guilty in some sense as the perpetrators were innocent in some sense. As an example, Levi asserts in The Drowned and the Saved that some prisoners imitated, collaborated with, and/or assisted the Nazis for the reward of better treatment for themselves; Levi pleads with us to consider that man "becomes all the more confused....the more he is subjected to tensions: at that point he evades our judgment, just as a compass goes wild at the magnetic pole" (43)."
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