Primo Levi the grey zone Flashcards
make others understand our experience?
what we commonly mean by ‘understand’ coincides with ‘simplify’: without a profound simplification the world around us would be infinite
[the world] undefined tangle that would
defy our ability to orient ourselves and decide upon our actions
we also tend to simplify
history
different historians may understand and construe history in ways that are
incompatible with one another
this simplification is justified, but the same does not always apply to simplification itself
which working hypothesis, useful as long as it is recognised as such and not mistaken for reality
who today reads (or writes) about the history of the Lager reveals the tendency to
separate bad from good
they do not like
ambiguity
where power is exercised by few or only one against the man, privilege is born and proliferates
even against the will of the power itself
it is the grey zone, poorly defined, where the two camps of
masters and servants both diverge and converge
the grey zone possesses an incredibly complicated internal structure and contains within
itself enough to confuse our need to judge
the nazism of the final years could not do without
these external auxiliaries
before discussing the motives that impelled some prisoners to collaborate to some extent with the Lager authorities, however,
it is necessary to declare the impromptu dence of issuing moral judgement on such human cases.
certainly the greatest responsibility lies with
the system the very structure of the totalitarian state
the concurrent guilt on the part of individual big and small collaborators (…)
is always difficult to evaluate
[prisoners] in general they were poor devils like ourselves, who worked full time like everyone else but
who for an extra half- later of soup were willing to carry out these and other ‘Tertiary’ functions: innocuous, sometimes useful, often invented out of the whole cloth
[prisoners] they were rarely violent but they tended to develop a typically
corporate mentality and energetically defined their ‘job’ against anyone from below or above who might covet it
[prisoners] their privilege, which at any rate entailed supplementary hardships and efforts,
gained them very little and did not spare them from the discipline and suffering of everyone else
[priv prisoners] their hope for life was substantially the same as that
of the un privileged
[prisoners] they were corse and
arrogant but they were not regarded enemies
mans domination over man is inscribed in our genetic
patrimony as gregarious animals
there is no proof that power is
intrinsically harmful to the collectivity
the power of which the functionaries of whom we are speaking disposed, even if they were low-ranking, such as kapos of the work squad, was in substance
unlimited; or, more accurately put, a lower limit was imposed on their violence in the sense that they were punished or disposed if they did not prove to be sufficiently harsh
[Kapos] were free to commit the worst atrocities on their subjects
as punishment fro transgression, or even without any motive whatsoever
until the end of 1943 it was not unusual for a prisoner
to be beaten to death by a Kapo without the latter having to fear any sanctions
later on, when the need for labour became more acute, were a number of limitations introduced:
the mistreatment of the Kapos were allowed to inflict on the prisoners could not permanently diminish their working ability
Thus the Lager, on a smaller scale but with amplified characteristics, reproduced the hierarchical
structure of the totalitarian state, in which all power is invested from above and control from below is impossible
only in the lager was the restraint from below non-existent and the power of these small satraps
absolute
[who became a Kapo] he common criminals, taken from prisons to whom a career as a torturer
offered an excellent alternative to detention
[who became a Kapo] political prisoners broken by five or ten years of suffering
or in any case morally debilitated
[who became a kapo] later on it was jews who saw in the particle
of authority being offered them the only possible escape from the final solution
[who became a Kapo] but many as we mentioned, spontaneously aspired to power, sadists(…)
the position of privilege coincided with the possibility of inflicting suffering and humiliation on those below them
the Lager reproduced the microcosm of totalitarian society: in both, without regard to ability and merit
power was generously granted to those who were willing to pay homage to hierarchic authority thus attaining an otherwise unattainable social elevation
power was sought by the many among the oppressed who had been contaminated
by their oppressors and unconsciously strove to identify with them
I do not know, and it does not interest me to know,
whether in my depths there lurks a murderer
but I do know that I was a guiltless
victim not a murderer
there exist grey, ambiguous
persons ready to compromise
