“In fact, we are the untouchables to the civilians. They think, more or less explicitly – with all the nuances lying between contempt and commiseration – that as we have been condemned to this life of ours, reduced to our condition, we must be tainted by some mysterious, grave sin. They hear us speak in many different languages, which they do not understand and which sound to them as grotesque as animal noises; they see us reduced to ignoble slavery, without hair, without honour and without names, beaten every day, more abject every day, and they never see in our eyes a light of rebellion, or of peace, or of faith. They know us as thieves and untrustworthy, muddy, ragged and starving, and mistaking the effect for the cause, they judge us worthy of our abasement. Who could tell one of our faces from the other? For them we are ‘Kazett’, a singular neuter word” (Pg 121).
I wonder if all the civilians thought of the Jews as how Primo Levi describes here. I wonder what the thought of German Christians was at that time, as they saw the prisoners in the concentration camp. It is arguable to assume that Hitler used propaganda and other effective ways to literally brainwash the people of Germany, so most German civilians actually treated the Jews as animals and worthless beings. At one moment, I was outraged by the fact that German civilians didn’t try hard and put their effort to help the Jews and oppose to the concentration camps. But then I realized that if I were in that situation, I wouldn’t have courage to do so because I would not want to give up my life because of the Jews. I won’t deny that I’m a self-centered person and that I’m a coward. I wouldn’t have sacrificed my future and my life for what I believed to be true. Maybe the people in Germany also felt that way. I sincerely admire those who sacrifice their lives for others. It requires great courage, which I obviously don’t have.
