"The Drowned and the Saved" Primo Levi Muchnik Publishers Inc., 2000 Primo Levi (Turin, 1919 to 1987) In 1943 he was captured
and deported to Auschwitz. Chemist by profession, began in writing in order to bear witness to their
experience. Perhaps because it felt fulfilled its mission, or perhaps as being impossible, committed suicide. The book wants to help clarify some points of the phenomenon of stocks that are still obscure. The author, a survivor of Auschwitz, seeks to go beyond the stereotypes and simplifications, showing that the gap between things as they were there and things as they represent the imagination flow. In this book, Primo Levi, not only looking for the story, a chronicle of what lived in the stocks, as did "If this is a man" but that analyzes with admirable courage, psychological and sociological aspects of the way live in the midst of hellish order established by nationalism. This arrangement had as a priority the transformation of humans into animals, in order to facilitate the massacre. In other words, it was imperative to degrade both the victims and the
victimizers, to those who had to kill could do so without guilt. The deliberate perversity and free, it was not pointless, however. This system of cruelty, obscenity and ill omens were installed in all stocks successfully with the aim of optimizing the final solution. The transformation of human beings was a system in animals, except in exceptional temperaments, produce a mutation of both the victims and their victimizers. Reflection bolder in this book is a description of what the author called the grey area, that area of ambiguity and compromise between victims and victimizers, space inhabited by figures clumsy and pathetic. Primo Levi, not found in this perverse system, two distinct blocs: the executioners and victims, those who speak and those who are silent, the righteous and sinners, good and evil, them and us. Levi defines this series of grey men, blind rather than criminals, who are fighting desperately to steal the crumbs of bread crumbs or carving of a criminal authority and dying. An order was hellish as nationalism, it has a terrifying power of corruption that is difficult escape, the author makes clear, and nobody is authorized to trial because no one can know how long it will resist his soul before bowing. The men who draw strength from a fall moral Few says Levi. The ritual of entry into the Lager-a-indecipherable system represented a decisive experience: entering believe in the solidarity of the companions in misfortune, but this was not the case except in rare cases. Solidarity was intermittent. The first threats, insults or not blows came from the SS, but the same classmates. Former expressing hostility against which fell as she was still the smell of a home. This sudden revelation, which broke out in the encounter with a new enemy-that in another context would have been a supportive partner-could topple in one fell swoop resilience. The darkest side of this grey area, as can be inferred from the analysis of Levi, the stories are disturbing and repugnant to the kapos and officers of the stocks and the stories of those who were assigned to the crematoria. Before concluding, I stress the crucial caveat that makes Levi again and again: No one has the right to judge. Remember also that the experience was told by people who did not come to the bottom. Whoever came to the bottom, it has not returned to count or its ability to comment was exterminated.