Survival in Auschwitz

by Primo Levi

Then for the first time we became aware that our language lacks words to express this offence, the demolition of a man. In

It is not possible to sink lower than this; no human condition is more miserable than this, nor could it conceivably be so.

To the old hands of the camp, the numbers told everything: the period of entry into the camp, the convoy of which one formed a part, and consequently the nationality.

When he is given the command of a group of unfortunates, with the right of life or death over them, he will be cruel and tyrannical, because he will understand that if he is not sufficiently so, someone else, judged more suitable, will take over his post.

At bottom, we all had a certain dread of changes: “When things change, they change for the worse” was one of the proverbs of the camp.