Primo Levi, Christopher Browninig and Auschwitz

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)."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Balakian, Peter. "Poetry in hell: Primo Levi and Dante at Auschwitz." The American Poetry Review 37.1 (Jan-Feb 2008): 3(3).
• Browning, Christopher. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York: Harper, 1993.
• Gates, David. "Germany and the Jews: Like it or not, new books on the Holocaust still have to reckon with 'Hitler's Willing Executioners'." Newsweek 135.10 (March 6, 2000): 70
• Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity. Trans. Stuart Woolf. New York: Collier, 1961
• Levi, Primo. The Drowned and the Saved. Trans. Raymond Rosenthal. New York: Vintage, 1988.

More papers on Primo Levi, Christopher Browninig and Auschwitz:

• Analytical Essay # 5587 : "Primo Levi's "Survival in Auschwitz"
• Book Review # 104565 : "Primo Levi's "Survival in Auschwitz"
• Book Review # 50001 : "Primo Levi's "Survival in Auschwitz"

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