by Primo Levi
How many months have gone by since we entered the camp? How many since the day I was dismissed from Ka-Be? And since the day of the chemistry examination? And since the October selection?
Alberto and I often ask ourselves these questions, and many others as well. We were ninety-six when we arrived, we, the Italians of convoy 174,000; only twenty-nine of us survived until October, and of these, eight went in the selection. We are now twenty-one and the winter has hardly begun. How many of us will be alive at the new year? How many when spring begins?
There have been no air raids now for several weeks; the November rain has turned to snow, and the snow has covered the ruins. The Germans and Poles go to work in rubber jackboots, woollen ear-pads and padded overalls; the English prisoners have their wonderful fur-lined jackets. They have distributed no overcoats in our Lager except to a few of the privileged; we are a specialized Kommando, which – in theory – only works under shelter; so we are left in our summer outfits.
We are the chemists, ‘therefore’ we work at the phenylbeta sacks. We cleared out the warehouse after the first air raids in the height of the summer. The phenylbeta seeped under our clothes and stuck to our sweating limbs and chafed us like leprosy; the skin came off our faces in large burnt patches. Then the air raids temporarily stopped and we carried the sacks back into the warehouse. Then the warehouse was hit and we took the sacks into the cellar of the styrene department. Now the warehouse has been repaired and once again we have to pile up the sacks there. The caustic smell of the phenylbeta impregnates our only suit, and follows us day and night like our shadows. So far, the advantages of being in the Chemical Kommando have been limited to the following: the others have received overcoats while we have not; the others carry 100 pound cement sacks, while we carry 125 pound phenylbeta sacks. How can we still think about the chemistry examination and our illusions of that time? At least four times during the summer we have heard speak of Doktor Pannwitz’s laboratory in Bau 939, and the rumour spread that the analysts for the Polymerization Department would be chosen among us.
But now it is time to stop, it is all over now. This is the last act: the winter has begun, and with it our last battle. There is no longer any reason to doubt that it will be the last. Any time during the day when we happen to listen to the voice of our bodies, or ask our limbs, the answer is always the same: our strength will not last out. Everything around us speaks of a final decay and ruin. Half of Bau 939 is a heap of twisted metal and smashed concrete; large deformed blue icicles hang like pillars from the enormous tubings where the overheated steam used to roar. Buna is silent now, and when the wind is propitious, if one listens hard, one can hear the continuous dull underground rumbling of the front which is getting nearer. Three hundred prisoners have arrived in the Lager from the Lodz ghetto, transferred by the Germans before the Russian advance: they told us rumours about the legendary battle of the Warsaw ghetto, and they described how the Germans had liquidated the Lublin camp over a year ago: four machine-guns in the corners and the huts set on fire; the civilized world will never know about it. When will it be our turn?
This morning the Kapo divided up the squads as usual. The Magnesium Chloride ten to the Magnesium Chloride: and they leave, dragging their feet, as slowly as possible, because the Magnesium Chloride is an extremely unpleasant job; you stand all day up to your ankles in cold, briny water, which soaks into your shoes, your clothes and your skin. The Kapo grabs hold of a brick and throws it among the group; they get clumsily out of the way, but do not quicken their pace. This is almost a custom, it happens every morning, and does not always mean that the Kapo has a definite intent to hurt.
The four of the Scheisshaus, to their work: and the four attached to the building of the new latrine leave. For when we exceeded the force of fifty Häftlinge with the arrival of the convoys from Lodz and Transylvania, the mysterious German bureaucrat who supervises these matters authorized us to build a ‘Zweiplatziges Kommandoscheisshaus’, i.e. a two-seated closet reserved for our Kommando. We are not unaware of this mark of distinction, which makes ours one of the few Kommandos of which one can with reason boast of one’s membership: but it is evident that we will lose one of the simplest of pretexts to absent ourselves from work and arrange combinations with civilians. ‘Noblesse oblige,’ says Henri, who has other strings to his bow.
The twelve for the bricks. Meister Dahm’s five. The two for the tanks. How many absent? Three absent. Homolka gone into Ka-Be this morning, the ironsmith dead yesterday, François transferred who knows where or why. The roll-call is correct; the Kapo notes it down and is satisfied. There are only us eighteen of the phenylbeta left, beside the Prominents of the Kommando. And now the unexpected happens.
The Kapo says: Doktor Pannwitz has communicated to the Arbeitsdienst that three Häftlinge have been chosen for the Laboratory: 169509, Brackier; 175633, Kandel; 174517, Levi. For a moment my ears ring and Buna whirls around me. There are three Levis in Kommando 98, but Hundert Vierundsiebzig Fünf Hundert Siebzehn is me, there is no possible doubt. I am one of the three chosen.
The Kapo looks us up and down with a twisted smile. A Belgian, a Russian and an Italian: three ‘Franzosen’ in short. Is it possible that three Franzosen have really been chosen to enter the paradise of the Laboratory?
Many comrades congratulate us; Alberto first of all, with genuine joy, without a shadow of envy. Alberto holds nothing against my fortune, he is really very pleased, both because of our friendship and because he will also gain from it. In fact, by now we two are bound by a tight bond of alliance, by which every ‘organized’ scrap is divided into two strictly equal parts. He has no reason to envy me, as he neither hoped nor desired to enter the Laboratory. The blood in his veins is too free for this untamed friend of mine to think of relaxing in a system; his instinct leads him elsewhere, to other solutions, towards the unforeseen, the impromptu, the new. Without hesitating, Alberto prefers the uncertainties and battles of the ‘free profession’ to a good employment.
I have a ticket from the Arbeitsdienst in my pocket, on which it is written that Häftling 174517, as a specialized worker, has the right to a new shirt and underpants and must be shaved every Wednesday.
The ravaged Buna lies under the first snows, silent and stiff like an enormous corpse; every day the sirens of the Fliegeralarm wail; the Russians are fifty miles away. The electric power station has stopped, the methanol rectification columns no longer exist, three of the four acetylene gasometers have been blown up. Prisoners ‘reclaimed’ from all the camps in east Poland pour into our Lager haphazardly; the minority are set to work, the majority leave immediately for Birkenau and the Chimney. The ration has been still further reduced. Ka-Be is overflowing, the E-Häftlinge have brought scarlet fever, diphtheria and petechial typhus into the camp.
But Häftling 174517 has been promoted as a specialist and has the right to a new shirt and underpants and has to be shaved every Wednesday. No one can boast of understanding the Germans.
We entered the Laboratory timid, suspicious and bewildered like three wild beasts slinking into a large city. How clean and polished the floor is! It is a laboratory surprisingly like any other laboratory. Three long work-benches covered with hundreds of familiar objects. The glass instruments in a corner to drip, the precision balance, a Heraeus oven, a Höppler thermostat. The smell makes me start back as if from the blow of a whip: the weak aromatic smell of organic chemistry laboratories. For a moment the large semi-dark room at the university, my fourth year, the mild air of May in Italy comes back to me with brutal violence and immediately vanishes.
Herr Stawinoga gives us our work-places. Stawinoga is a German Pole, still young, with an energetic, but sad and tired face. He is also Doktor: not of chemistry, but (ne pas chercher à comprendre) of comparative philology; all the same, he is head of the Laboratory. He does not speak to us willingly, but does not seem ill-disposed. He calls us ‘Monsieur’ which is ridiculous and disconcerting.
The temperature i
n the Laboratory is wonderful; the thermometer reads 65° F. We agree that they can make us wash the glass instruments, sweep the floor, carry the hydrogen flasks, anything so as to remain here, and so solve the problem of the winter for us. And then, on a second examination, even the problem of hunger should not be difficult to solve. Will they really want to search us at the exit every day? And even if they want to, will they do it every time that we ask to go to the latrine? Obviously not. And there is soap, petrol, alcohol here. I will stitch a secret pocket inside my jacket, and combine with the Englishman who works in the repairs-yard and trades in petrol. We will see how strict the supervision is: but by now I have spent a year in the Lager and I know that if one wants to steal and seriously sets one’s mind to it, no supervision and no searchings can prevent it.
So it would seem that fate, by a new unsuspected path, has arranged that we three, the object of envy of all the ten thousand condemned, suffer neither hunger nor cold this winter. This means a strong probability of not falling seriously ill, of not being frozen, of overcoming the selections. In these conditions, those less expert than us about things in the Lager might even be tempted by the hope of survival and by the thought of liberty. But we are not, we know how these matters go; all this is the gift of fortune, to be enjoyed as intensely as possible and at once; for there is no certainty about tomorrow. At the first glass I break, the first error in measurement, the first time my attention is distracted, I will go back to waste away in the snow and the winds until I am ready for the Chimney. And besides, who knows what will happen when the Russians come?
Because the Russians will come. The ground trembles day and night under our feet; the muffled dull rumbling of their artillery now bursts uninterrupted into the novel silence of Buna. One breathes a tense air, an air of resolution. The Poles no longer work, the French again walk with their head high. The English wink at us and greet us on the aside with a ‘V’ sign; and not always on the aside.
But the Germans are deaf and blind, enclosed in an armour of obstinacy and of wilful ignorance. Once again they have named the date for the beginning of the production of synthetic rubber: it will be the first of February 1945. They construct shelters and trenches, they repair the damage, they build, they fight, they command, they organize and they kill. What else could they do? They are Germans. This way of behaviour is not meditated and deliberate, but follows from their nature and from the destiny they have chosen. They could not act differently: if you wound the body of a dying man, the wound will begin to heal, even if the whole body dies within a day.
Every morning now, when the squads are divided, the Kapo calls us three of the Laboratory before all the others, ‘die drei Leute vom Labor’. In camp, in the evenings and the mornings, nothing distinguishes me from the flock, but during the day, at work, I am under shelter and warm, and nobody beats me; I steal and sell soap and petrol without risk, and perhaps I will be given a coupon for a pair of leather shoes. Even more, can this be called work? To work is to push wagons, carry sleepers, break stones, dig earth, press one’s bare hands against the iciness of the freezing iron. But I sit all day, I have a notebook and a pencil and they have even given me a book to refresh my memory about analytical methods. I have a drawer where I can put my beret and gloves, and when I want to go out I only have to tell Herr Stawinoga, who never says no and asks no questions if I delay; he has the air of suffering in his flesh for the ruin which surrounds him.
My comrades in the Kommando envy me, and they are right; should I not be contented? But in the morning, I hardly escape the raging wind and cross the doorstep of the Laboratory when I find at my side the comrade of all my peaceful moments, of Ka-Be, of the rest-Sundays – the pain of remembering, the old ferocious suffering of feeling myself a man again, which attacks me like a dog the moment my conscience comes out of the gloom. Then I take my pencil and notebook and write what I would never dare tell anyone.
Then there are the women. How long is it since I have seen a woman? In Buna we quite often met the Polish and Ukrainian women workers, in trousers and leather jackets, huge and violent like their men. They were sweaty and dishevelled in the summer, padded out with thick clothes in the winter and worked with spades and pickaxes. We did not feel ourselves next to women.
It is different here. Faced with the girls of the Laboratory, we three feel ourselves sink into the ground from shame and embarrassment. We know what we look like: we see each other and sometimes we happen to see our reflection in a clean window. We are ridiculous and repugnant. Our cranium is bald on Monday, and covered by a short brownish mould by Saturday. We have a swollen and yellow face, marked permanently by the cuts made by the hasty barber, and often by bruises and numbed sores; our neck is long and knobbly, like that of plucked chickens. Our clothes are incredibly dirty, stained by mud, grease and blood; Kandel’s breeches only arrive half-way down his calves, showing his bony, hairy ankles; my jacket runs off my shoulders as if off a wooden clothes-hanger. We are full of fleas, and we often scratch ourselves shamelessly; we have to ask permission to go to the latrines with humiliating frequency. Our wooden shoes are insupportably noisy and are plastered with alternate layers of mud and regulation grease.
Besides which, we are accustomed to our smell, but the girls are not and never miss a chance of showing it. It is not the generic smell of the badly washed, but the smell of the Häftling, faint and sweetish, which greeted us at our arrival in the Lager and which tenaciously pervades the dormitories, kitchens, washrooms and closets of the Lager. One acquires it at once and one never loses it: ‘so young and already stinking!’ is our way of greeting new arrivals.
To us the girls seem outside this world. There are three young German girls, Fräulein Liczba, the Polish store-keeper, and Frau Meyer, the secretary. They have smooth, rosy skin, beautiful attractive clothes, clean and warm, blond hair, long and well-set; they speak with grace and self-possession, and instead of keeping the Laboratory clean and in order, as they ought to, they smoke in the corners, scandalously eat bread and jam, file their nails, break a lot of glass vessels and then try to put the blame on us; when they sweep, they sweep our feet. They never speak to us and turn up their noses when they see us shuffling across the Laboratory, squalid and filthy, awkward and insecure in our shoes. I once asked Fräulein Liczba for some information, and she did not reply but turned with an annoyed face to Stawinoga and spoke to him quickly. I did not understand the sentence, but I clearly grasped ‘Stinkjude’ and my blood froze. Stawinoga told me that for anything to do with the work we should turn directly to him.
These girls sing, like girls sing in laboratories all over the world, and it makes us deeply unhappy. They talk among themselves: they talk about the rationing, about their fiancés, about their homes, about the approaching holidays…
‘Are you going home on Sunday? I am not, travelling is so uncomfortable!’
‘I am going home for Christmas. Only two weeks and then it will be Christmas again; it hardly seems real, this year has gone by so quickly!’
… This year has gone by so quickly. This time last year I was a free man: an outlaw but free, I had a name and a family, I had an eager and restless mind, an agile and healthy body. I used to think of many, far-away things: of my work, of the end of the war, of good and evil, of the nature of things and of the laws which govern human actions; and also of the mountains, of singing and loving, of music, of poetry. I had an enormous, deep-rooted, foolish faith in the benevolence of fate; to kill and to die seemed extraneous literary things to me. My days were both cheerful and sad, but I regretted them equally, they were all full and positive; the future stood before me as a great treasure. Today the only thing left of the life of those days is what one needs to suffer hunger and cold; I am not even alive enough to know how to kill myself.
If I spoke German better I could try to explain all this to Frau Meyer; but she would certainly not understand, or if she was so good and intelligent as to understand, she would be unable to bear my proximity,
and would flee from me, as one flees from contact with an incurable invalid, or from a man condemned to death. Or perhaps she would give me a coupon for a pint of civilian soup.
This year has gone by so quickly.
16
The Last One
By now Christmas is approaching. Alberto and I are walking side by side in the long grey file, bending forwards to resist the wind better. It is night and it is snowing; it is not easy to keep on one’s feet, and even more difficult to keep up the pace in line; every now and again someone in front of us stumbles and falls in the black mud, and one has to be careful to avoid him and keep one’s place in the column.
Since I started work in the Laboratory, Alberto and I work separately and we always have many things to tell each other on the return march. They are not usually things on a high level: about work, or our comrades, or the bread or the cold. But for a week now there had been something new: every evening Lorenzo brings us six or eight pints of soup from the Italian civilian workers. To solve the problem of transport, we had to procure what is called a ‘menaschka’ here, that is, a zincpot, made to order, more like a bucket than a pot. Silberlust, the tin-smith, made it for us from two scraps of a gutter in exchange for three rations of bread; it was a splendid, sturdy, capacious pitcher, with the characteristic shape of a neolithic tool.
In the whole camp there are only a few Greeks who have a menaschka larger than ours. Besides the material advantages, it carries with it a perceptible improvement in our social standing. A menaschka like ours is a diploma of nobility, a heraldic emblem: Henri is becoming our friend and speaks to us on equal terms; L. has assumed a paternal and condescending air; as for Elias, he is perpetually at our side, and although he spies on us with tenacity to discover the secret of our ‘organisacja’, he overwhelms us at the same time with incomprehensible declarations of solidarity and affection, and deafens us with a litany of portentous obscenities and oaths in Italian and French which he learnt somewhere and by which he obviously means to honour us.
