Primo Levi shame

Question 1

a certain fixed image has been proposed innumerable times, concentrated by literature and poetry and picked up by cinema

Answer 1

“quiet after the storm’

Question 2

the disease runs its course and

Answer 2

health returns

Question 3

the universal suffering that all round; their own exhaustion , which seemed definitive,

Answer 3

past cure

Question 4

the problems of a life to begin again

Answer 4

amid the rubble, often alone

Question 5

leaving pain behind was a delight for only a few fortunate beings

Answer 5

or only for a few instants, or for very simple should; almost always it coincided with a phase of anguish

Question 6

anguish is know to everyone, even children, and every one knows that it

Answer 6

is often blank, undifferentiated

Question 7

one can think that one is suffering at facing the future and instead be

Answer 7

suffering because of ones past

Question 8

one can think that one is suffering for others, out of pity, out of compassion

Answer 8

and instead be suffering for ones own reasons, more or less profound, more or less avowable and avowed

Question 9

coming out of the darkness one suffered because of the required

Answer 9

consciousness of having been diminished

Question 11

we had lived for month and years at

Answer 11

an animal level

Question 12

we endured filth, promiscuity, and destruction

Answer 12

suffering much less than we would have suffered from such things in normal life- because our moral yardstick had changed

Question 13

all of us had stolen: in the kitchen, the factory, the camp, in short “from the others: from the opposing side, but it was

Answer 13

theft nevertheless

Question 14

some had fallen so low as to steal bread from there own

Answer 14

companions

Question 15

we had not only forgotten our country and our culture, but also our

Answer 15

family, our past, the future we had imagined for ourselves

Question 16

like animals we were

Answer 16

confined to the present moment

Question 17

precisely because of the constant imminence of death there was no time

Answer 17

to concentrate on the idea of death

Question 18

in the majority of cases suicide is born from a feeling of guilt that no punishment has attenuated; now the

Answer 18

harshness of imprisonment was perceived as punishment the feeling of guilt (…) was regulated to the background, only to reemerge after liberation

Question 19

what guilt? when all was over, the awareness emerged that we had not done anything, or not enough,

Answer 19

against the system into which we had absorbed

Question 20

on a rational plane there should not have been much to be ashamed of, but

Answer 20

shame persisted nevertheless, especially for the few bright examples of those who had the strength and possibility to resist

Question 21

few survivors feel guilty about having deliberately damaged, robbed, or beaten a companion

Answer 21

those who did so (Kapos but not only they) block out the memory

Question 22

the demand for solidarity, for a human word, advice even just a listening ear

Answer 22

was permanent and universal but rarely satisfied

Question 23

the principle rule of the place which made it mandatory that you

Answer 23

take care of yourself first of all

Question 24

that of selfishness extended to the person closest to you

Answer 24

(…) a friend of mine appropriately called us-ism

Question 25

we drank all the water, in small avaricious gulps changing places under the spigot

Answer 25

just the two of us

Question 26

but Daniele had caught a glimpse of us

Answer 26

in that strange position

Question 27

why the two of you,

Answer 27

not I? it was the civilian moral code surfacing again

Question 28

changing moral codes is always costly

Answer 28

all heretics, apostates and dissidents know this

Question 29

we cannot judge our behaviour or that of others, driven

Answer 29

at the time by the code of that time, on the basis of today’s codes

Question 30

are you ashamed that you are alive in place

Answer 30

of another? and in particular of a man more generous, more sensitive, more useful, wiser, worthier of living than you?

Question 31

you did not usurp anyone’s place,

Answer 31

you did not beat anyone

Question 32

he told me that my having survived could not be the work of chance, of an accumulation of circumstances

Answer 32

(…) but rather of providence. I bore bank, I was elect: I the non believer after the season of Aushcwitz, was a person touched by grace,, a saved man

Question 33

such an opinion seemed monstrous to me. it pained me as when one touches an exposed nerve, and kindled the doubt I spoke of before:

Answer 33

I might be alive in the place of another, at the expense of another; I might have usurped that is, killed

Question 34

the ‘saved’ of the lager were not the best, those predestined to be good, the bearers of a message:

Answer 34

what I had lived through proved exactly the contrary

Question 35

I felt innocent yes, but enrolled among the saved and therefore in permanent

Answer 35

search of a justification in my own eyes and those of others

Question 36

I must repeat: we, the survivors

Answer 36

are not the true witnesses

Question 37

we who were favoured by fate tried, with more or less wisdom

Answer 37

to recount not only our fate but also that of the others, indeed of the drowned

Question 38

and there is another shame,

Answer 38

the shame of the world

Question 39

it was useless to close one’s eyes or turn one’s bak to it

Answer 39

because it was all around

Question 40

never again could it be

Answer 40

cleansed

Question 41

it would prove that man, the human species- we- inshore- had the

Answer 41

potential to construct an infinite enormity of pain and that in pain is the only force created from nothing, without cost without effort

Question 42

these factors can occur again and are

Answer 42

already recurring in various parts of the world