2
" They are the typical product of the structure of the German Lager: if one offers a position of privilege to a few individuals in a state of slavery, exacting in exchange the betrayal of a natural solidarity with their
comrades, there will certainly be someone who will accept. He will be withdrawn from the common law and will become untouchable; the more power that he is given, the more he will be consequently hateful and
hated. When he is given the command of a group of unfortunates, with the right of life or death over them, he will be cruel and tyrannical, because he will understand that if he is not sufficiently so, someone else, judged more suitable, will take over his post.
Moreover, his capacity for hatred, unfulfilled in the direction of the oppressors, will double back, beyond all reason, on the oppressed; and he will only be satisfied when he has unloaded onto his underlings the injury received from above. "
― Primo Levi , If This Is a Man • The Truce
3
" We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last - the power to refuse our consent. So we must certainly wash our faces without soap in dirty water and dry ourselves on our jackets. We must polish our shoes, not because the regulation states it, but for dignity and propriety. We must walk erect, without dragging our feet, not in homage to Prussian discipline but to remain alive, not to begin to die. "
― Primo Levi , If This Is a Man • The Truce
6
" They did not greet us, nor did they smile; they seemed opressed not only by compassion but by a confused restraint, which sealed their lips and bound their eyes to the funeral scene. It was that shame we knew so well, the shame that drowned us after the selections, and every time we had to watch, or submit to, some outrage: the shame the Germans did not know, that the just man experiences at another man's crime; the feeling of guilt that such a crime should exist, that it should have been introduced irrevocably into the world of things that exist, and that his will for good should have proved too weak or null, and should not have availed in defense "
― Primo Levi , If This Is a Man • The Truce
9
" He was a bricklayer; for fifty years, in Italy, America, France, then again in Italy, and finally in Germany, he had laid bricks, and every brick had been cemented with curses. He cursed continuously, but not mechanically; he cursed with method and care, acrimoniously, pausing to find the right word, frequently correcting himself and losing his temper when unable to find the word he wanted; then he cursed the curse that would not come. "
― Primo Levi , If This Is a Man • The Truce
10
" There is no rationality in the Nazi hatred: it is hate that is not in us, it is outside of man.. We cannot understand it, but we must understand from where it springs, and we must be on our guard. If understanding is impossible, knowing is imperative, because what happened could happen again. Consciences can be seduced and obscured again - even our consciences. For this reason, it is everyone duty to reflect on what happened. Everybody must know, or remember, that when Hitler and Mussolini spoke in public, they were believed, applauded, admired, adored like gods. They were "charismatic leaders" ; they possessed a secret power of seduction that did not proceed from the soundness of things they said but from the suggestive way in which they said them, from their eloquence, from their histrionic art, perhaps instinctive, perhaps patiently learned and practised. The ideas they proclaimed were not always the same and were, in general, aberrant or silly or cruel. And yet they were acclaimed with hosannas and followed to the death by millions of the faithful. "
― Primo Levi , If This Is a Man • The Truce
12
" Всички си повтаряха, че руснаците ще дойдат скоро, веднага; всички бяха убедени в това и все пак никой не се надяваше дълбоко в себе си. Защото в лагерите човек загубва навика да се надява, дори доверието в собствения си разум. Да се мисли в лагера е излишно, защото събитията настъпват непредвидими, а и е вредно, защото този навик поддържа жива чувствителността, която е извор на мъка и която предвидливите природни закони притъпяват щом страданието прехвърли известни граници. Човек се уморява не само от радостта, страха и мъката, но и от очакването "
― Primo Levi , If This Is a Man • The Truce
13
" Тук, в лечебницата на лагера, времето бе наше: местехме се от нар в нар, правехме си посещения и говорехме, говорехме... Дървената барака, наблъскана със страдащо човечество, беше изпълнена с думи, със спомени и с една мъка, която на немски се нарича Heimweh, хубава дума, която означава "мъка по дома".
Знаехме откъде идваме - спомените за външния свят населяваха нашите сънища и нашите бдения; установявахме с изненада, че нищо не сме забравили и всеки извикан спомен изниква пред нас с болезнена яснота. Но къде отивахме - не знаехме. Дали щяхме да оцелеем от болестите и да избегнем газовите камери, дали щяхме да издържим на труда и глада, които ни изпиваха? А след това? Тук, временно пощадени от ругатните и побоя, можехме да се вглъбим в себе си и да размислим, и ни ставаше ясно, че не ще се завърнем. Дотук пътувахме с пломбирани вагони; видяхме да отвеждат на смърт нашите жени и деца; превърнати в роби, стотици пъти отивахме и се връщахме с маршова стъпка към безропотния си труд с изпепелени души, преди да е настъпила анонимната ни смърт. Ние нямаше да се върнем. Никой не трябваше да излезе оттук и да занесе на света, заедно със знака, жигосан върху плътта ни, лошата вест какво човек е дръзнал да стори на човека тук, в Освиенцим. "
― Primo Levi , If This Is a Man • The Truce
15
" For human nature is such that grief and pain - even simultaneously suffered - do not add up as a whole in our consciousness, but hide, the lesser behind the greater, according to a definite law of perspective. It is providential and is our means of surviving in the camp. And this is the reason why so often in free life one hears it said that man is never content. In fact it is not a question of a human incapacity for a state of absolute happiness, but of an ever-insufficient knowledge of the complex nature of the state of unhappiness; so that the single name of the major cause is given to all its causes, which are composite and set out in an order of urgency. And if the most immediate cause of stress comes to an end, you are grievously amazed to see that another one lies behind; and in reality a whole series of others.
So that as soon as the cold, which throughout the winter had seemed our only enemy, had ceased, we became aware of the hunger; and repeating the same error, we now say: "If it was not for the hunger!... "
― Primo Levi , If This Is a Man • The Truce
17
" Then for the first time we became aware that our language lacks words to express this offence, the demolition of a man. In a moment, with almost prophetic intuition, the reality was revealed to us: we had reached the bottom. It is not possible to sink lower than this; no human condition is more miserable than this, nor could it conceivably be so. Nothing belongs to us any more; they have taken away our clothes, our shoes, even our hair; if we speak, they will not listen to us, and if they listen, they will not understand. They will even take away our name: and if we want to keep it, we ill have to find ourselves the strength to do so, to manage somehow so that behind the name something of us, of us as we were, still remains. "
― Primo Levi , If This Is a Man • The Truce
20
" It is lucky that it is not windy today. Strange, how in some way one always has the impression of being fortunate, how some chance happening, perhaps infinitesimal, stops us crossing the threshold of despair and allows us to live. It is raining, but it is not windy. Or else, it is raining and it is also windy: but you know that this evening it is your turn for the supplement of soup, so that even today you find the strength to reach the evening. Or it is raining, windy and you have the usual hunger, and then you think that if you really had to, if you really felt nothing in your heart but suffering and tedium - as sometimes happens, when you really seem to lie on the bottom - well, even in that case, at any moment you want you could always go and touch the electric wire-fence, or throw yourself under the shunting trains, and then it would stop raining. "
― Primo Levi , If This Is a Man • The Truce
