Week 9 Reading Entry: Levi

How does the poem opening the work affect how you read the main body of the text?

The poem serves as a kind of warning for the reader before entering into the main body of the text. It seems to make the reader anxious or nervous about what they are going to read, as they can already tell that they might be made uncomfortable by its content. It also seems to make the reader realize that they should not take for granted what they have, which for some readers, could make them feel guilty as they begin to read Levis account of the death camps.

Sum up what the poem is saying in one sentence.

The poem says that the people who did not experience the death camp and who continue to live comfortable lives must remember the atrocities that happened during the Holocaust and recount them to others in order to keep such an event from happening again.

What are the key characteristics of the narrator which Levi chooses to present in this work; how would you describe the narrator?

Levi describes the narrator as being young, inexperienced, naïve, unrealistic, moderately rebellious, skeptical, and lacking hope. I would describe the narrator as being intelligent and sympathetic, but fairly pessimistic and hopeless.

Does this add to or take away from your ability to sympathize with the narrator?

There is no instance in which I would not sympathize with someone who experienced living in the death camps of the Holocaust. Even if the narrator had many negative characteristics, I would still sympathize with him, because he is human, and no human should be subjected to an experience like the death camps. The characteristics of this narrator in particular did not affect how much I sympathized with him. I simply saw him as a human who had to live through the closest thing to Hell on earth.

Which moment(s) in the text stand out or make the strongest impact on you? Why?

“…and even the teachers of the little school gave lessons until the evening, as on other days. But that evening the children were given no homework.” (21)
• Everyone knows what is going to happen, and even though they carry out their lives as usual, they know that the children will be taken away the next day.

“Dawn came on us like a betrayer; it seemed as though the new sun rose as an ally of our enemies to assist in our destruction. The different emotions that overcame us, of resignation, of futile rebellion, of religious abandon, of fear, of despair, now joined together after a sleepless night in a collective, uncontrolled panic.” (22)
• Portrays the way that it seems like the whole world has turned its back on him, that there is no aspect of his life or of the day that gives him hope in that moment.

“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.” (23)
• Strangely hopeful comment in which he shows that even in the worst of situations that no man should have to experience or can imagine experiencing, there is no way that one can be truly unhappy.

“Next to me, crushed against me for the whole journey, there had been a woman. We had known each other for many years, and the misfortune had struck us together, but we knew little of each other. Now, in the hour of decision, we said to each other things that are never said among the living. We said farewell and it was short; everybody said farewell to life through his neighbor. We had no more fear.” (25)
• Moment of deep human compassion between strangers in a time of despair.

“When we finish, everyone remains in his own corner and we do not dare lift our eyes to look at one another. There is nowhere to look in a mirror, but our appearance stands in front of us, reflected in a hundred livid faces, in a hundred miserable and sordid puppets. We are transformed into the phantoms glimpsed yesterday evening.” (32)
• Effectively shows how dehumanized each man feels, to the point at which they can no longer look at each other.

“He has understood; he now gets up, approaches me and timidly embraces me. The adventure is over, and I feel filled with serene sadness that is almost joy. I have never seen Schlome since, but I have not forgotten his serious and gentle face of a child, which welcomed me on the threshold of the house of the dead.” (37)
• Moment of deep human compassion between strangers in a time of despair.

“We Italians had decided to meet every Sunday evening in a corner of the Lager, but we stopped it at once, because it was too sad to count our numbers and find fewer each time, and to see each other ever more deformed and more squalid. And it was so tiring to walk those few steps and then, meeting each other, to remember and to think. It was better not to think.” (43)
• Shows how any efforts to form communities and support groups within the death camps are dashed by the sadness of seeing others die or be in the process of dying.