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
it remains true that the majority of oppressors, during or (more often) after there deed, realised that what they were doing or had done was
iniquitous, or perhaps experienced doubts or discomfort, or were even punished, but this suffering was not enough to enrol them among the victims
in short, they were saved by luck and there is not much sense in trying to
find something common to all their destinies, beyond perhaps their initial good health
false to maintain- that they all and always followed the behaviour expected of saints and stoic philosophers
in reality, in the vast majority of cases, their behaviour was rigidly pre ordained
choices (…)
was reduced to zero
Soderkommandos (special squads)
extract corpses from the chambers, to pull gold teeth from he jaws, to cut women’s hair, to sort and classify clothes, shoes, and the contents of luggage, to transport the bodies to the crematoria and oversee the operation of the ovens, to extract and eliminate ashes
these special squads di not escape everyone else’s fate
on the contrary the SS exerted the greatest diligence o prevent any man who had been part of it from surviving and telling
in October 1944 the last squad rebelled against the the Ss blew up one of the crematoria and was
exterminated in an unequal battle that I will discuss later on
no one speaks willingly about their
frightful condition
the special squads were made up largely of
jews
one is stunned by this paroxysm of perfidy and hatred:
it must be jews who put the jews into the ovens; it must be shown that the jews (…) bow to any and all humiliation, even to destroying themselves
the special squads being barbers of a horrendous secret were kept rigorously apart from
the other prisoners and the outside world
the intrinsic sorrow of this human
condition has imposed a sort of reserve on all the testimony, so that even today it is difficult to conjure up an image of “what it meant” to be forced to exercise the trade for moths
the existence of the squads had a meaning, a message
“we the master race, are your destroyers, but you are no better than we are; if we so wish, and we do so wish, we can destroy not only your bodies but also your souls, just as we have destroyed ours”
images like this astonish because they conflict with the image we have of man
himself, coherent, monolithic
compassion and brutality can
coexist
there is no proportion between the pity we feel and the extent of the pain by which the pity is aroused
a single Anne Frank excites more emotion than the myriads who suffered as she did but whose image has remained in the shadows
no the girl must die if she were older, it would be a different matter
But she’s only sixteen: she can’t be trusted
and yet
he does not kill her with his own hands
Muhsfeild was not a compassionate person; his daily ration of slaughter was studded with arbitrary and capricious acts
(…) had he lived in a different environment and epoch, he probably would have behaved like any other common person
[Mushfeld] it is enough to place him too, although at its extreme boundary, within the
grey band, that zone of ambiguity which radiates out from regimes based on terror and obsequiousness
why did they accept that task?
why didn’t they rebel?
not all did accept; some did rebel knowing they
would die
those who from one shift to the next preferred a
few more weeks of life (what a life) to immediate death
I believe that no one is authorised to judge them
not those who lived through the experience of the Lager and even less those who did not
I would invite anyone who dares pass judgement to carry upon himself with sincerity, a conceptual experiment: let him imagine if he can that
he has lived for months or years in a ghetto, tormented by chronic hunger, fatigue, promiscuity, and humiliation; that he has seen die around him, one by one (…)
now nobody can know for how long and under what trials his soul can
resist before yielding or breaking
each individual is so complex that
that there is no point trying to force his behaviour, all the more so in extreme situations
nor is it possible to
force one’s own behaviour
Chaim Rumkowsi
director of Jewish Charities (…) president of a ghetto
Rumkowski passionatley
loved authority
[Rumkowski] soon came to see himself as in the role of absolute but enlightened
monarch, and he was certainly encouraged along his path by his German masters
from these famished citizens of his, Rumkowski aspired to obtain not only obedience and respect
but also love: in this respect modern dictatorships differ from the ancient ones
[rumkowski] he had a carriage of drawn by a skeleton nag in which he rode through the streets of his minuscule kingdom
streets crowded with beggars and postulants. he had a regal mantel and surrounded himself with court flatterers
[Rumkowski] he had adopted the oratorical technique
of Mussolini and Hitler, they style of inspired recitation, the Pseudo-colloquy with the crowd, the creation of consent through subjugation and plaudit
[rumkowski] his attitude sprang from his condition as a small tyrant
impotent with those above him and omnipotent with those below him
feeling beneficent is gratifying
even for a corrupt satrap
Biebow
was not a ferocious beast.
[Biebow] was not interested in creating useless suffering or punishing the jews for the sin of Being Jewish, but he
was interested in profiting from contracts (…) the torment in the ghetto touched him, but only indirectly
[Biebow] he wanted the slave workers to work and therefore he did not want them
to die of hunger: his moral sense ended there
Biebow, a small jackal too cynical to take race demonology seriously, would have liked to put off forever the dismantling of
the ghetto, which for him was an excellent deal
neither the letter not the special carriage were able to save
Chaim Rumkowski, the king of the Jews from the gas chamber
who was Rumkowski?
not a monster, nor a common man; yet many around us are like him
[Rumkowski] it seems to me that in his story it is possible to recognise in an exemplary form the almost physical necessity with which political
coercion gives birth to that ill-defined sphere of ambiguity and compromise
at the foot of every absolute throne, men such as Rumkowski crowd in order to grab their
small portion of power
power is like a drug:
the need for either is unknown to anyone who has not tried them, but after the initiation (…) can be fortuitous
[power like a drug] need for ever larger doses is born
as are the denial of reality and the return to childish dreams of omnipotence
intoxication of power is so powerful as to prevail even under conditions
seemingly designed to extinguish all individual will
Rumkowski’s story is the sorry, disquieting story of the Kapos and Lager functionaries
the small hierarchs who serve a regime to whose misdeeds they are willingly blind
Rumkowski a symbolic and compendiary figure, must be placed in this band of
half consciences
every defendant helps his judge, even though he does not want to, even if he lies, because mans
capacity to play a role is not unlimited
we are all mirrored in Rumkowski, his ambiguity is ours, it is our second nature
we hybrids folded from clay spirit
like Rumkowski we are too dazzled by
power and prestige as to forget our essential fragility
willingly or not we come to terms with power
(…) forgetting that we are all in the ghetto, that the ghetto is walled in, that outside the ghetto reign the lords of death and that close by the train is waiting
