The Drowned and the Saved

Editorial Review:

Levi wrote of the moral collapse that occurred in Auschwitz and the fallibility of human memory that allows such atrocities to recur. Levi's last book published before his death in 1987.

This book, published months after Italian writer Primo Levi's suicide in 1987, is a small but powerful look at Auschwitz, the hell where Levi was imprisoned during World War II. The book was his third on the subject, following Survival in Auschwitz (1947) and The Reawakening (1963). Removed from the experience by time and age, Levi chose to serve more as an observer of the camp than the passionate young man of his previous work. He writes of "useless violence" inflicted by the guards on prisoners and then concludes the book with a discussion of the Germans who have written to him about their complicity in the event. In all, he tries to make sense of something that--as he knew--made no sense at all.

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0

Witnesses for the Lost:

"The Drowned and the Saved" by Primo Levi, is different in one aspect from his earlier works dealing with his experiences in Auschwitz: in the previous books, he was still an impassioned young man, racing as it was to record his memories and experiences. For later in life, memory can become less exact and true, as he recounts in this book, a collection of reflections and observations about his experiences and what they have to say about that time and humanity in general. "The Drowned and the Saved" is a... more info

Trying to Understand the "Un-Understandable":

How does anyone explain the murder of hundreds of thousands by other human beings? Whether it's Armenians by Turks, Poles by Germans, Soviets by Soviets, Rwandans by Rwandans, Cambodians by Cambodians, Croats by Serbs, Serbs by Croats, Bosniaks by Serbs, Darfuris by Sudanese; the cruelty involved in the murders far outweights the "reasons" for the crimes.
No matter how angry one is with his fellow human beings, the systematic murder of ones neighbors is unfathomable. The murders in the ex-Yugoslavia... more info

A Note:

Just a note to correct the Amazon book description that states that Levi committed suicide. He did not. He fell to his death down a staircase in his apartment house.

As important as a book gets:

It is redundant to praise this book or describe its background, which has been done very well by other reviewers. This was Levi's final wrestling with the implications of what he called the Lager (he didn't use the term 'Holocaust'), not only as he experienced it, but more generally.
Just a few points that may be less obvious. Levi never uses the phrase "survivor guilt," and his choice of terms was never without consideration. Rather, he uses the term, "shame." The chapter that goes by that name is an... more info

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