My father,
who survived the Holocaust, couldn't sleep. He also didn't want to. And with
dreams where he saw his lost mother's face appear in the middle of a frying
egg, fringed by bubbles of boiling fat, who could blame him?
He didn't
talk about his family - it was too painful. More than that, words couldn't be
trusted to convey the reality of what had happened.
Words are
dangerous things, especially when you write as beguilingly as Primo Levi. He
loves language, revels in linguistic oddities, and, assuming that the
translator is faithful to the original, couldn't admit a badly chosen word into
his work even if he wanted to.
Yet
while you lose yourself in his writing, lulled by his prose into a luxurious
state of relaxation, divorced from the real world, his jewel-like words are
describing the very essence of evil.
‘If This Is
a Man,' is Levi's account of surviving the Holocaust. An Italian Jew, he spent
the last months of the war in Auschwitz, one
of a handful in his transport of 650 to live. A cynic might describe it as the
ultimate self-help book - a guide to surviving against the odds. But it's also
a record book, a literal account of what you gain, and what you lose in the
process.
Concentration
camps existed to destroy lives on an industrial scale. Primo Levi shows how, in
the process, their other real wickedness was to strip the inmates of everything
that made them human. The struggle for life was so all-encompassing that there
was space for no other emotion - no compassion for the weak nor even grief for
yourself; as Levi describes it, being unhappy ‘in the manner of free men.'
While
selection for the gas chambers was an ever-present threat, it was obscured by
the daily battle with death from starvation, cold and illness. Avoiding these,
by any means possible, was all that mattered and to fail was to die.
Many
religions approve of suffering, as a means of purification. Levi's account
gives the lie to this. When there is nothing but suffering, it corrupts. When it
is removed, humanity returns.
Levi
trusted in words. Commentators have said that he wanted his story to bear
witness. And in a way it does, but so beautifully that his words, whether you
want them to or not, redeem the ugliness of the story. I may remember the
Haftling (prisoner) whose constant questioning marks him out as a dead man as
soon as he arrives; I can't forget Levi reciting Dante from memory to a friend.
‘If This Is
a Man' is a descent into darkness. Primo Levi's next book, ‘The Truce' details
the journey back up again, where Levi returns to his native Italy through
countries ravaged by war, and he and his companions regain their humanity.
On April 1st
1987 Levi fell to his death. The debate as to whether or not it was suicide has
continued ever since. What you believe rather depends on whether you agree that
his prose, for all its warmth and elegance, contains a terrible truth about
mankind - that our lives rest on a fragile layer of convention, thinner than a
sheet of ice and capable of rupture at any time.
And if
Levi, humane and intelligent as he was, looked into the future for mankind and
saw only an abyss, what hope is there for the rest of us?
P.S.
Richard Swinburne, who is apparently ‘a distinguished theologian and philosopher'
once argued that ‘the Holocaust had a positive element because it gave Jews an
opportunity to be noble and courageous'. And yet, do you know, I think that,
presented with such an opportunity for myself, it's one I might just decline,
though I'd be more than happy to accept on Mr Swinburne's behalf.
