Analysis Of Survival In Auschwitz By Primo Levi

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Recommended: What are the day-to-day challenges of surviving in Auschwitz, as explained in Primo Levi’s memoir

Much of the scholarly research and literature on the work of Primo Levi “Survival in Auschwitz” is very concerned about the fact that the holocaust proved that the perception that we have about morality can be adaptable in extreme circumstances. What we know as traditional moral codes is what apparently ceased exist within the barbed wires of the concentration camps, or at least in the Auschwitz case. In my essay I will try to give a close analysis given by the textual evidence of the book trying to analyze what can happen to the morals adaptation of human beings when they need to adapt to very harsh life conditions. Within the camps, prisoners were not treated like humans and therefore the author makes clear references to the animalistic behavior necessary to survive. The “ordinary moral world” (86) of which Primo Levi talks about during his “permanence” Auschwitz, ceases to exist. It is always brought up to the attention of the reader, through the eyes of the author, that the meanings and applications of words like “good,” “evil,” “just,” and “unjust” begin to fuse and the differences between these opposites become unclear. To survive in Auschwitz required almost a total alienation of one’s self-respect and human dignity. Those who were exposed to dehumanizing mistreatments inevitably ended up being dehumanized, forcing one to resort to mental, physical, and social adaptation in order to retain one’s life and personality. According to what Levi writes in his accounts, it is along these lines that the tender line separating right and wrong begins to blur. What seems to be the most important thing, in the face of complete hopelessness and almost certainty of death, is one’s mental stability which becomes almost an impossible goal ... ... middle of paper ... ...to satisfy one’s needs. Not by chance the book begins with a poem that starts with a “if” and invites the reader to make a judgment. The poem explains the title and sets the theme of the book: humanity in the midst of inhumanity. In conclusion we can say that Survival in Auschwitz remains one of the most bitter cases in which the history of the Holocaust is explained in a very dehumanizing way. This extreme psychological perspective elaborated by Levi generates a very powerful effect to such an extent that we wonder to what extent the inverse psychology of the prisoners is ready to conduce each of them. Levi ultimately recalls for the reader the challenges that he faced on a daily and hourly basis to meet the basic needs necessary to remain alive and to record what happened so that later generations will think about the significance of the events he lived through.

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