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Primo Levi’s memoir depicts life and death in the final days of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex from his incarceration in February 1944 to the Soviet liberation of the camp in January 1945. At the time of Levi’s arrest as a Jew under the Italian Racial Laws, World War II had been in progress since September 1939. The Nazis’ forced labor camps filled the gaps in their dwindling workforce on the home front to continue the war effort.
Levi is one of 650 Italians deported to Auschwitz as part of that labor force. Once in Poland, the train stops on a deserted plain and the young and fit are separated from the children, the old, and the sick. A total of ninety-six men and twenty-nine women board trucks bound for the respective camps of Monowitz-Buna and Birkenau in the Auschwitz complex, and the other 500 are killed. Intake at the Monowitz-Buna camp involves the seizure of all their belongings, the shaving of their heads, and the tattooing of identification numbers on their arms. Prisoners are assigned to blocks where pairs share narrow bunks. The daily routine is enforced by a cacophony of shouting in a variety of languages as well as beatings. Each man is assigned to a work squad. Some work sites are located kilometers away from the barracks where private corporations maintain plants to utilize the slave labor. The prisoners walk to these sites in their prison-issue cotton shirts, jackets, and wooden clogs in below-freezing weather. Hunger is constant, to the point that the men dream of food and make eating movements in their sleep.
When Levi has a job injury, he spends a few weeks in the Ka-Be infirmary. There he learns of the process of selection to send those no longer able to work to the gas chambers in Birkenau. He finds out that Ka-Be is the center of an extensive barter system. All personal belongings of those admitted are confiscated for later use to barter for medical supplies, which are stolen from the private corporation worksites by prisoners looking to improve their quality of life. Levi analyzes the complex political and economic system in the camp alongside the dynamic of the antipathy existing between the German political soldiers of the Nazi Party (SS) and the industrialists. At the center of the book, he lays out the personal qualities and strategies that improve a prisoner’s chances of survival. The book will go on to present lessons in working the system.
Levi’s own turning point comes with an appointment to the Chemical Kommando, a squad of chemists tasked with supporting the Buna synthetic rubber plant. He develops friendships and continues to upgrade his survival skills. An influx of Hungarian internees in the spring creates overcrowding conditions. In June and July, the inmates feel fleeting hope hearing news of developments in the war: the Allies’ landing in Normandy; the Russian offensive; and a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler. In August, the Allies begin bombing the area of Poland where Auschwitz is situated and continue throughout the fall. The bombardments halt work on the Buna rubber plant. In October, the German SS commandant conducts a selection to deal with overcrowded conditions in the blocks. This involves sorting the thousands of prisoners in the camp into two categories: those who are sent to die in the gas chambers at Birkenau, and those who are spared. Levi and his best friend, Alberto, are spared.
A group of subversive prisoners blow up a crematorium in Birkenau. In November, Levi is chosen as one of three prisoner chemists to work in the Buna laboratory as the Germans gear up once again to begin production of the rubber. Civilian prisoners have brought scarlet fever, diphtheria, and typhus into the camp population. Toward the end of December, the German SS holds a public hanging for the one prisoner who hasn’t already been executed for the crematorium destruction. Levi feels ashamed because, despite he and Alberto’s organized schemes to collect large amounts of food and clothing, they have still let the Germans defeat their spirits.
On January 11, Levi comes down with scarlet fever and is admitted to the infectious disease ward of the Ka-Be infirmary with twelve other patients in various stages of scarlet fever, diphtheria, and typhus. With the Soviet troops advancing, the Germans evacuate Auschwitz early on January 18, taking the fit and leaving the sick behind. Alberto leaves with the healthy prisoners, never to be seen by Levi again. Bombardments begin that day, destroying parts of the complex around the infirmary. From January 18 through 20, the prisoners watch the Wehrmacht fleeing the oncoming Soviet army. The Soviet army enters the camp on January 27 and sets up a temporary hospital to care for the survivors. Levi ends his memoir with an epitaph for the men who shared the last ten days as a team of survivors.
