Journal #17

Chapter 17. The Story of Ten Days

"I had a high fever. I was lucky entirely to myself: I lay down with relief
knowing that I had the right to forty days' isolation and therefore of rest."

Primo was lucky to fall sick with fever. If it were not for fever, he would have gone with the Germans and eventually be killed by them. It sounded ironic to me, because fever saved him from death. It also reminded of the Ka-Be, the infirmary, discussed at the beginning of the book. To be sick in the Auschwitz meants to rest, if the sickness was not fatal. Now that all the people except sick people are evacuated, there is no one to force them to work, no one to punish them, and no one to distribute foods. However, they still show their respect to those who suffered and would suffer for a little bit more: "We could not find anything to say, but for the time being we did not touch the bread." Should they have already been blinded by hunger and pain, they wouldn't wait until the bread was distributed among themselves. It would be done even before they were sliced into pieces. January 27, the last day in the Auschwitz, was also the last moment they were stuck in the nightmare. It was the end of their experience in the Auschwitz, but their memory would never leave there. Germans, though they were eventually put down, tortured so many people to the end of their lives.

Journal #16

Chapter 16. The Last One

"But everybody heard the cry of the doomed man, it pierced through the old thick
barriers of inertia and submisiveness, it struck the living core of man in each
of us: 'Kamaraden, ich bin der Letz!'(Comrades, I am the last one!)

I thought to myself: what would I have done if I were in the same situation? Do I really care about me being the last one to die, if I were to be killed anyway? That "doomed man" is symbolizes hope and determination. He was the only person so brave to take his thought into actions and rebel against the Germans. What about the other prisoners?"I wish I could say that from the midst of us, an abject flock, a voice rose, a murmur, a sign of assent. But nothing happened. We remained standing, bent and grey, our heads dropped, and we did not uncover our heads until the German ordered us to do so."Complete Submissiveness. While the last one was crying for his independence from the Germans, the very sign of his triumph over them. Had they even murmured anything, they might have been able at least to rebel silently against the Germans. Shame on them. Their courage is taken out since long ago, and they no longer seem to have any dignity against the Germans now. The dead person was killed, but he is yet to be dead. Germans might have been successful in taking his life away, but they never took his humanity away. How easy is it to kill a person, and how difficult is it to destroy that person?

"To destroy a man is difficult, almost as difficult as to create one."

Journal #15

Chapter 15. Die drei Leute vom Labor

This chapter focuses on the reminiscence Primo Levi feels as he finds German people living like nothing's going on. There are several girls working in the laboratory, who are not prisoners but "civilians." They talk about daily life without gratitude that they are gifted with everyday life.

"Only two weeks and then it will be Christmas again; it hardly seems real, this
year has gone by so quickly!"

This sentence shocks Primo Levi and makes him think of the past, when he was just like the girls chattering about trivial things. To him, the year he spent inside the Auschwitz was probably the longest year he has ever spent.
From his narration, I found that he is deprived of all the dreams he had before, and now he is left with nothing except agony."My days were both cheerful and sad, but I regretted them equally, they were all full and positive; the future stood before me as a great treasure. Today the only thing left of the life of those days is what one needs to suffer hunger and cold; I am not even alive enough to know how to kill myself."I imagined how he felt like. Say the Third World War broke out, and I'm imprisoned as a captured civilian. All the complaints I had - too much homework, pressure from the parents, and so on - would be gone and the only thing I think of would be survival. Just thinking of that, taught me why I should be grateful for what I have and what I go through right now.

Journal #14

Chapter 14. Kraus

What I saw from chapter 13 comes out as a main theme in this chapter, but now it seems more hopeless.

"What a good boy kraus must have been as a civilian: he will not survive very
long here, on can see it at the first glance, it is as logical as a theorem."

In this quote, I found that Primo Levi is not only judging whether Kraus is going to survive or not, but he actually shows condescending attitudes toward him.
It seems that as time goes on, prisoners have more and more pressure that they have to overcome in order to survive. What makes me more curious is how the survivors are going to live. Can they live in a normal, ordinary way just like others? Can they forget about the atrocities they have gone through for months? Some people get too much pressure and stress that they have psychological impact from them and lose their abilities to live ordinarily. Well, seeing that Primo Levi wrote a whole book about his experience with lots of details, he was definitely unable to delete all the memories, but he handled with them without going crazy. There probably are, however, people who lost their control over the memories.

Journal #13

Chapter 13. October 1944

'Selekcja.' I found more fear in the word than any other words in the book. But it was not just fear that it created.

"The young tell the young that all the old ones will be chose. The healthy tell
the healthy that only the ill will be chosen. Specialists will be excluded.
German Jews will be excluded. Low numbers will be excluded. You will be chosen.
I will be excluded."

How simplistic point of view is that. It shows how people are reluctant to see themselves susceptible to what is very probable to happen to them. This does not only put the prisoners into fear, but also disorganizes them. They try to find others' weaknesses and reasons to be picked and killed.

"It is absurd of Wertheimer to hope: he looks sixty, he has enormous varicose
veins, he hardly even notices the hunger anymore. But he lies down on his bed,
serene and quiet, and replies to someone who asks him with my own words."

Has Primo Levi changed? He seems like he's judging others based on their probability of survival, rather than personality or value. Nasty things that Germans inflicted on the prisoners made their lifestyle, value, and personality readjust to the Auschwitz. That is the most humiliating part of it.

Journal #12

Chapter 12. The Events of the Summer

"Thanks to Lorenzo, I managed not to forget that I myself was a man."

I read many novelss that talk about brainwashing and losing one's sense of humanity. 1984 by George Owell and The Brave New World by Aldous Huxley were two of the most impressive books I read and, still, I didn't really believe in the idea that people can forget about they are and how they are supposed to behave, nor did I consider the effect of brainwashing possible. I found some connections between these books and the Survival in the Auschwitz, because the sense of humanity is an important motif in all three books.
After reading the Survival in Auschwitz, especially this chapter, I realized that it is very easy to lose one's humanity unless there's something that keeps reminding him/her of it. Lorenzo is a symbolic person who represents the pureness. He is a man who keeps his morality whatever the circumstances are. He does not try to just get him out of the agony, he cares about others. This taught me how we are affected by the people around us. Should Lorenzo was a pessimistic, selfish person, Primo Levi might have forgot who he was - that is, to lose his morality.

"I believe that it was really due to Lorenzo that I am alive today"

Journal #11

Chapter 11. The Canto Of Ulysses

This chapter was not very important in the plot itself, but still was very impressive. It was somewhat hard to understand because there were so many references to Dante's Divine Comedy, and I had to do read over and over again to understand. Basically, Primo Levi translates the Canto of Ulysses in French to teach Jean Italian.While he teaches French, he finds that his language had certain characteristics that French could not convey.

"I can point out why 'I set forth' is not 'je me mis,' it is much stronger and
more audacious, it is a chain which has been broken, it is throwing oneself on
the other side of a barrier, we know the impulse well."

His pride in Italian is more of emotional and exuberant, but I have the same experience with him, too. There are so many words in Korean (and it does not confine only to Italian and Korean, it's something that every single language has) that cannot be translated perfectly in other languages. There's always something missing in translation, which, I guess, is called nuance. What Primo Levi describes is meaningful - if it were not, this whole story about Italian couldn't be a chapter by itself - because we see how he appreciates the beauty of things in spite of all the disasters around him. It is not his optimistic personality that enables him to do so, it's the human nature that always does that. We always find hope in the hopelessness.

Journal #10

Chapter 10. Chemical Examination

This chapter introduces what is called "chemical examination." Primo Levi volunteers to be a worker in the Chemical Kommando, because it is much less strenuous work. What I thought from that is how human tends to find the way to live the best life under the given circumstances. Primo Levi, just like any other person in the world, seems to seek a way out of this death camp.

"And now I also know that i can save myself if I become a Specialist, and that I
will become a Specialist if I pass a chemistry exmination."

However, after all the experiences he has gone through in Auschwitz, Primo Levi does not accept this examination quite readily. His disbeliefs and memories of torture make him doubt anything he sees and hears. "But have the Germans such great need of chemists? Or is it a new trick, a new machine 'pour faire chier les Juifs'? Are they aware of the grotesque and absurd test asked of us, of us who are nolonger alive, of us who have already gone half-crazy in the dreary expectation of nothing?" Only by the hope of surviving this dreadful place, Primo Levi decided to go through the chemical examination, because he knows one simple truth: "No Sacred Face will help thee here... it's not A Serchio bathing-party..."

Journal #9

Chapter 9. The Drowned and The Saved

"But in the Lager things are different: here the struggle to survive is
without respite, because everyone is desperately and ferociously alone."

"Thousands of individuals, differing in age, condition, origin, language, culture and customs, are enclosed within barbed wire: there they live a regular, controlled life which is identical for all and inadequate to all needs..."

This chapter focuses on the individuality of prisoners in the Auschwitz. As mentioned in the quotes above, we can see how indiviuals struggle to survive this camp. They steal things, beat others and rebel, but it seems that they are the one who will make it out of the camps. This puts them in the dilemma. Should they choose to survive physically, or should they keep their morals? I sometimes also feel the same dilemma. If I could cheat, that would definitely raise my grade, but then I am a cheater and I'm not a good student any more. Everyone knows that no one should cheat, but, still, this dilemma is something that everyone experiences.

Journal #8

Chapter 8. This Side of Good and Evil

This chapter introduces a black market inside the Auschwitz. Black market usually has bad connotations because of the things traded inside the market. They usually trade forbidden things, like drugs, weapons, etc - honestly i don't know too much about them - but in Auschwitz it's different. They trade what they really need and it seems that this market is rather a "white market." All the prisoners benefit from the trade, except that theft and counter-theft is prevalent in this place.

More interesting feature of the market was that it looked more like a society inside the camp. For instance, there is fluctuation in the value of certain goods, just like what happends in our economic system:

"There have been periods in which the prize-coupon was worth one ration of
bread, then one and a quarter, even one and a third; one day it was quoted at
one and a half ration, but then the supply of Mahorca to the canteen failed,
sothat, lacking a coverage, the money collapsed at once to a quarter of a
ration."

It tells us that wherever people gather, there is a society, almost the same with the one in which we live. Maybe this is why we sometimes consider books as mirrors of the society; even in this biography we find a distinct society in the camp.

Journal #7

Chapter 7. A Good Day

"Today is a good day. We look around like blind people who have recovered their
sight, and we look at each other. We have never seen each other in sunlight:
someone smiles."

Why was it a good day? There were two answers for that. First, literally, it was a sunny day and, therefore, a good day. The other reason is that the prisoners got more soup than usual. I think that the former reason makes more sense in the context of this novel, even though it does sound ridiculous to say, "it was a good day because it was sunny."

The sun, in this chapter, has a symbolic meaning of hope and the connection between the past and the present. The quote above shows that the blind prisoners "recovered their sight, which indicates that they haven't seen sunlight for a long time. It is the same sunlight that they used to have while they were "civilians," and it is probably the only common thing between the concentration camps and their home.

This passage reminded me that we sometimes take our daily life granted and that we shouldn't be.

Journal #6

Chapter 6. The Work

As the title suggests, this chapter shows how harsh labor is in the Auschwitz. The main theme in this story is probably how people form groups inside the Auschwitz, especailly when each pair up with another person when working.
"I will try and place myself with Resnyk; he seems a good worker and being taller will support the greater part of the weight. I know that it is in the natural order of events that Resnyk refuse me with disdain and form a pair with another more robust individual."
Reading this passage, the image I brought up immediately was the survival of the fittest. All the strong and robust people pair up with each other and work well, while the weak eventually die out because of harsh work. However, the reality in Auschwitz is much more optimistic than what Primo expects;
"Instead Resnyk accepts, and even more, lifts up the sleeper by himself and rests it on my right shoulder with care; then he lifts up the other end, stopps to place it on his left shoulder and we leave."
What I leart from this is how Germans failed to destroy the humanity in the Jews. Although strenuous work and harsh punishment might have physically tortured them to the worst extent, they never lost their morality nor dignity. There might have been some people who have lost their humanity right away, but there is always, at least, a minority who keeps their morality, and, seeing that even armed Germans have failed to, it seems so difficult to root out the human dignity from people.

Journal #5

Chapter 5. Our Nights

Now Primo Levi is "discharged to his great pleasure." However, he still dreams of pleasure, which is more than just foods, which others desire. His dream is about the whistle, hard bed and his neighbor. He soon figures out that no one is paying attention to what he is saying, and that his dream is only "dream."

"In fact, they are completely indifferent: they speak confusedly of other things
among themselves, as if I was not there. My sister looks at me, get up and goes
away without a word. A desolating grief is now born in me, like certain barely
remembered pains of one's early infancy."

This chapter shows how the attitudes of people change as their circumstances change. If people around Primo Levi were listening to him as "civilians," they would have considered it nostalgic; in Auschwitz, it's stays a "dream." Unrealistic but creative. From the very point they rode on the train, they are stuck in the Auschwitz, a closed, but endless death camp, where there is no tomorrow.

Journal #4

Chapter 4. Ka-Be

The most impressive feeling that this chapter gave me was irony. Ka-Be, which is an abbreviation of Krankenbau, or the infirmary, is the place where prisoners rest from labor for a week or two. It sounded ironic because we usually go to the infirmary because we are sick and hurt and we don't really want to go to infirmary even if we get hurt. In Auschwitz, labor is the worst thing the prisoners are to do and Ka-Be is the only way to avoid working.

"Chajim rejoices with me: I have a good wound, it does not seem dangerous, but
it should be enough to guarantee me a discreet period of rest."

This sentence showed how lucky for the prisoners to be hurt. Every moment in Auschwitz is painful for them, and Ka-Be is probably the only place where prisoners can rest without suffering from labor. From an optimistic point of view, however, it seems that there is always way out even the most desperate situations, like the Auschwitz.