Auschwitz, the notorious Nazi concentration camp, was a place of unimaginable suffering and death during World War II. Amidst the horrors, some individuals managed to find the strength and resilience to survive. These survivors have left behind powerful quotes that offer insights into the human spirit, resilience, and the will to survive. In this article, we will explore some of the most poignant and thought-provoking quotes from Primo Levi’s book “Survival in Auschwitz.”
Primo Levi, an Italian Jewish chemist, was one of the few survivors of Auschwitz. His memoir, “Survival in Auschwitz,” provides a firsthand account of his experiences in the camp and the struggle to hold on to one’s humanity in the face of unimaginable cruelty. Levi’s words serve as a testament to the strength of the human spirit and the importance of never forgetting the atrocities committed during the Holocaust.
Below, we have compiled a collection of quotes from “Survival in Auschwitz” that offer glimpses into the harsh reality of life in the camp and the indomitable will to survive. These quotes are a reminder of the importance of remembering history and the resilience of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable adversity.
Read These “Survival in Auschwitz” Quotes
“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.”
“Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it.”
“We must be listened to: above and beyond our personal experience, we have collectively witnessed a fundamental unexpected event, fundamental precisely because unexpected, not foreseen by anyone. It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say.”
“Even in this place one can survive, and therefore one must want to survive, to tell the story, to bear witness; and that to survive we must force ourselves to save at least the skeleton, the scaffolding, the form of civilization. We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last — the power to refuse our consent.”
“The aims of life are the best defense against death.”
“Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.”
“It is natural to give a quick look of complicity, a smile of complicity, to the man who holds your fate in his hands, when you meet him for the first time.”
“I too entered the Lager as a nonbeliever, and as a nonbeliever I was liberated and have lived to this day.”
“One more stab to the heart, one more reason to hate, one less reason to live.”
“We must be cautious about passing moral judgment upon the Germans, for it is impossible to establish what proportion of the population was directly responsible for the atrocities.”
“Our language lacks words to express this offense, the demolition of a man.”
“Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable.”
“Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it.”
“The Lager was a great machine to reduce us to beasts, but by resisting, even in suffering, a man could keep alive his own humanity.”
“Human memory is a marvelous but fallacious instrument. The memories which lie within us are not carved in stone; not only do they tend to become erased as the years go by, but often they change, or even increase by incorporating extraneous features.”
“It is not possible to sink lower than this; no human condition is more miserable than this, nor could it conceivably be so.”
“The privileged ones fell, intoxicated, among the heap of corpses; but the others, the great majority, smelled nothing. And they will tell you so, smiling.”
“One of the most important aspects of Auschwitz was the gradual suppression of personality—the transformation into a number, which dehumanized and depersonalized individuals.”
“We must be listened to: above and beyond our personal experience, we have collectively witnessed a fundamental unexpected event, fundamental precisely because unexpected, not foreseen by anyone. It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say.”
“The higher the number of victims, the more abstract the crime becomes.”
These quotes from Primo Levi’s “Survival in Auschwitz” offer a glimpse into the unimaginable suffering and resilience of the human spirit during the Holocaust. They serve as a reminder of the importance of remembering history and standing against hatred and discrimination in all its forms.
