“But thousands of feet above us, in the gaps in the grey clouds, the complicated miracles of aerial duels began. Above us, bare, helpless and unarmed, men of our time sought reciprocal death with the most refined of instruments. A movement of a finger could cause the destruction of the entire camp, could annihilate thousands of men; while the sum total of all our efforts and exertions would not be sufficient to prolong by one minute the life of even one of us” (Pg 172).
Primo Levi was one of the few people who actually have survived through the selection, brutal treatment from SS officer, the bleak and freezing winter, deceptions among the prisoners, and much more. It seemed like he wasn’t proud of himself at all. He was into glorifying the people that have passed away from this experience because he truly believed that the people that have actually died in the camp are the true eye-witnesses to this horrible disaster. As I thought about it for moment, if I were in that situation, I would have wanted to die than to survive Auschwitz. Maybe because I have such a weak mentality and small-minded, I wouldn’t have managed to live even after I was free from the concentration camp. The memory of the all the small events that occurred during the lives in Auschwitz will come back alive and dance as if it was a painful endless waltz. Perhaps, after all the harsh training in the camp, my mind would have become strong and resilient in any society and in any situation, since there is nothing that is worse than what had happened in Auschwitz. But maybe it doesn’t make a person stronger but weaker, and we can see that through the suicide of Primo Levi. At the end, Primo maybe couldn’t resist the awful memory and accustomed to the aftermath of the whole Holocaust.
