Σήμερα το πρωί είχε 10 βαθμούς. Εκεί -15. Φόρεσα το ισοθερμικό (Παρόλο τον ήλιο κρύωνα υπερβολικά). Αυτός φορούσε ένα πουκάμισο ριγέ. Πήγα για τον καθιερωμένο καφέ-διάβασμα. Αυτός επιβίωνε μαζί με τα μελλοντικά περιεχόμενα του πρώτου του βιβλίου στο μυαλό. Με λένε Γιώργο. Τον λένε Primo. Καθαρίζω καρότα. Κάνω δίαιτα. Ξεπαγώνει γογγύλια, κάνει ότι, μα ότι μπορεί για να παραμείνει άνθρωπος. Λέω κρυώνω, λέει κρυώνω, λέω πεινάω, λέει πεινάω, λέω πονάω, λέει πονάω, λέω σκέφτομαι, λέει σκέφτομαι, λέω υπομονή, λέει υπομονή. Μου λέει: "Όπως αυτό το βάσανο της πείνας δεν είναι η πείνα που αισθανόμαστε επειδή παραλείψαμε ένα γεύμα, έτσι και γι’ αυτό το κρύο που υποφέρουμε, θα έπρεπε να επινοήσουμε μια άλλη λέξη. Λέμε «πείνα», λέμε «κούραση», «φόβος» και «πόνος», λέμε «χειμώνας», αλλά είναι διαφορετικά πράγματα. Είναι λέξεις των ελεύθερων ανθρώπων….που ζουν, απολαμβάνουν και υποφέρουν στα σπίτια του. Εάν τα στρατόπεδα εξακολουθούσαν να υπάρχουν για περισσότερο χρόνο, μια καινούργια άγρια γλώσσα θα είχε γεννηθεί." Και κάπου αλλού μου λέει: "Ξέρετε πως λέμε «ποτέ» στη γλώσσα του στρατοπέδου;…. «αύριο το πρωί»."
Με λένε Γιώργο και σήμερα τελείωσα ένα από τα πιο συγκλονιστικά βιβλία που έχω διαβάσει. Το "Εάν αυτό είναι ο άνθρωπος" του Primo Levi. Ένα βιβλίο που κάνεις το σταυρό σου (ακόμη κι αν δεν πιστεύεις), πιάνεις το στομάχι σου και μπαίνεις, όπως αυτός και κάθε «Αυτός» που πέρασε τη πύλη του στρατοπέδου Άουσβιτς. Πρόκειται λοιπόν για ένα βιβλίο με τα απομνημονεύματα ενός ανθρώπου από το Αουσβιτς. Θα μου πεις ρε Γεωργόπουλε αυτό είναι θέμα που έχουν γραφτεί τόσα γι αυτό. Θα μου πεις εδώ που ανεβάζεις αυτό το κείμενο είναι τόπος για να ξεχνάει κάποιος. Scroll= η επί του καναπέως λήθη. Θα μου πεις κάθε μέρα διαβάζουμε για μια νέα φρικαλεότητα που αφορά τον παρόντα ιστορικό χρόνο. Θα μου πεις για τα δεκάδες βίντεο ντοκουμέντα από τα στρατόπεδα συγκέντρωσης και για τα εκατοντάδες ίσως χιλιάδες βίντεο από τις σημερινές θηριωδίες. Θα μου πεις ότι βαριέσαι τα κείμενα στο Facebook. Θα με ρωτήσεις "Τι μας το παίζεις τώρα;" Θα μου μιλήσεις για ύφος γραφής. Θα μου μιλήσεις για ταινίες με θέμα το ολοκαύτωμα. Κι όμως εγώ είμαι εδώ, και είμαι συγκλονισμένος. Με ξεπέρασε το θέμα. Εδώ και μέρες που το διαβάζω. Εδώ και μέρες κοιτώ τη Μαρία και σκέφτομαι όλες αυτές τις Μαρίες που τις χώρισαν βίαια από τους άντρες τους και τις οδήγησαν κατευθείαν στους θαλάμους αερίων. Εδώ και μέρες προσπαθώ να με πείσω ότι τα δικά μου προβλήματα δεν μπορούν να ονομάζονται προβλήματα. Οι αυτοκτονίες λέει είχαν πολύ μικρό ποσοστό μέσα στο στρατόπεδο. Έτσι λέει. Κι αυτός αυτοκτόνησε πολύ αργότερα, ελεύθερος πια. Όπως και ο Jean Amery και άλλοι. Κάθε λέξη που ξεπήδησε από την πένα αυτού του ανθρώπου νιώθω ότι δεν μπορώ να την χρησιμοποιήσω πια εγώ. Δεν μπορώ να βγω ο ο ίδιος μέσα από το απόσπασμα:"Να επιζήσεις χωρίς να αρνηθείς τίποτα από τον ηθικό σου κόσμο, εκτός από περιπτώσεις μεγάλης εύνοιας και τύχης, ήταν δυνατόν μόνο σε ελάχιστους και αυτοί ήταν άνθρωποι ανώτεροι, από τη στόφα των Αγίων ή των μαρτύρων." Η ηθική μου στο κόσμο δοκιμάζεται μετά από ο απόσπασμα: "Εδώ δεν υπάρχουν ούτε τρελοί ούτε εγκληματίες: εγκληματίες γιατί δεν υπάρχει ηθικός νόμος για να παραβείς, τρελοί γιατί η τύχη μας είναι καθορισμένη και κάθε μας πράξη η μόνη δυνατή σε τόπο και χρόνο".
Δεν ξέρω τι είναι αυτό που κάνει έναν άνθρωπο στην Ελλάδα του σήμερα να τον αγγίζει ένα θέμα σαν αυτό. Πολλά μπορώ να σκεφτώ. Κάποια από αυτά … δεν πρέπει να τα σκεφτώ. Κι όμως απορώ. Προσπαθώ να επιβιώσω με μεγάλο άχθος από αυτή την γνώση. Ψάχνω την ανθρωπινότητά μου. Απελπισμένα, εσπευσμένα. Σε εμένα και σε εσένα. Αυτός μου λέει: "Είναι ακόμα άνθρωπος αυτός που σκοτώνει, αυτός που φέρεται άδικα ή υποφέρει από αδικία. Δεν είναι άνθρωπος αυτός που, έχοντας χάσει κάθε σεβασμό, μοιράζεται το ίδιο κρεβάτι με έναν νεκρό. Αυτός που περιμένει το θάνατο του διπλανού του για να του πάρει το τέταρτο του ψωμιού….Ένα κομμάτι της ύπαρξής μας κατοικεί στην ψυχή των υπάρξεων που μας περιβάλλουν και γι αυτό δεν είναι ανθρώπινη η εμπειρία όταν βλέπεις μπροστά σου τον άνθρωπο να μεταβάλλεται σε αντικείμενο".

Κρατήστε τους ανθρώπους δίπλα και μέσα σας ως ανθρώπους.

L'agghiacciante esperienza nel lager narrata da Primo Levi. Una biografia "romanzata" appassionante e terribile. Da leggere!

حین خواندن، همه‌اش به یک چیز فکر می‌کردم که اواخر کتاب خودِ نویسنده به آن اشاره کرد:

امروز برآنم که در زمانه‌ی ما هیچ‌کس نباید از مشیت الهی سخن بگوید، صرفا به این دلیل که روزی آشویتسی در کار بوده است...

-------------------------------------------------
ترجمه و ویراستاری کتاب خیلی خوب بود. پانویس‌های مترجم و مقدمه‌اش هم حرف نداشت.
حیف که مدت‌هاست تجدید چاپ نشده.

It is difficult to say anything about this book that has not been said a thousand times before. Survival in Auschwitz is a horrific account of Levi’s internment in the most infamous of concentration camps. Personal accounts of death camps have—tragically—become something of a genre in the 20th century. Yet no matter how many times one reads about this historical atrocity, the shock is just as powerful.

Levi’s book is no doubt among the most moving and insightful of these testimonies, for his eloquence as much as for his chillingly impassive tone. His cool and even detached manner give this book the full weight of an eye-witness report. And yet what Levi describes is so outside of my experience that I feel myself mentally rebelling—trying to deny it as impossible. Indeed, I do not think one can properly accommodate the fact of the Holocaust into one’s everyday assumptions about human behavior. Imagining the Holocaust as a living possibility—something that ordinary people did and can still do, something your neighbors and perhaps yourself can do—is just too chilling to internalize.

In two weeks I will, myself, be standing in Auschwitz, and I will see with my own eyes that horrid gateway. Levi has helped to prepare me.

n  
"Only an animal worries all the time about the next meal."
- Naguib Mahfouzn  
n

The desperation of the quote arising out of the idea that poor forced to live meal-to-meal might not be able to enjoy a human life can be found in Levi's memoir too. It's title coming from the poem that begins:

n  
"You who live safe
In your warm houses,
You who find, returning in the evening,
Hot food and friendly faces:
Consider if this is a man
Who works in the mud
Who does not know peace
Who fights for a scrap of bread
Who dies because of a yes or a no.
.
.
."n  
n

Though Nazi violence is mentioned:

n  
"how can one hit a man without anger?"n  
n

The book is more focused on the life of prisioners - how they survived while constantly feeling hunger (they would dream of food). How they learned to live the life of stealth, as people in such desperation circumstances are forced to - out of neccesity, nobody could survive the Auschwitz by being a nobel prisoner or by being altruistic to his fellow prisioners. They would avoid work as far as possible- even prefering being beaten to working

n  
n   "one does not normally die of blows, but one does of exhaustion, and badly"n  
n

Stealing things - frequently from each other, trying to get up in the hierarchy that was present among prisioners. N0t all prisoners were equal, there were class divisions among prisioners - Jewish prisioners weren't the only one but they were the worst, there were transactions among Jewish prisioners as well as between Jewish prisioners and other prisioners - using daily rations as a unit of currancy of this underground economy. And there were informal classes among prisioners too based on where they come, based on numbers given to them - the lower numbers and higher numbers etc.

And daily torments they had to go - constant hunger

n  
"One can hear the sleepers breathing and snoring; some groan and speak. Many lick their lips and move their jaws. They are dreaming of eating; this is also a collective dream."
n

the uncleanliness (as soap was a luxury only available to those who managed to steal it from somewhere), the rule of Jungle - where you look up to someone who is able to have an unfair advantage even if he doesn't share it rather than questioning them on moral grounds - well, that applies to most captialist societies to some extent., the hopelessness:

n  
"… And for how long? But the old ones laugh at this question: they recognize the new arrivals by this question. They laugh and they do not reply. For months and years, the problem of the remote future has grown pale to them and has lost all intensity in face of the far more urgent and concrete problems of the near future: how much one will eat today, if it will snow, if there will be coal to unload."/I>
n

Things like gratitude, sincerity and compassion came with a very serious disadvantage as they often are to poor. You couldn't trust the person with whom you shared your bed and this when even a small piece of metal wire or a spoon were tresure. However, the poverty imposed on them by Nazis -their name, their identity, their family and friends were all taken away from them.

n  
"Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often easily loses himself."
n  
n

n  
‘… Until one day
there will be no more sense in saying: tomorrow."n  
n

Primo Levi, químico de profissão, um judeu italiano, membro da resistência, foi deportado para um campo de concentração alemão em 1944, onde permaneceu por um período de 11 meses (os últimos da II Guerra Mundial). Esta experiência tornou-o escritor.

“Se isto é um homem” é um livro fidedigno e não romanceado sobre o holocausto.
O autor descreve a sua vida desde a deslocação para o campo até aos últimos dias de janeiro do ano seguinte, e fá-lo com um notório esforço pela verdade, em contar a verdade sem rodeios nem enfeites, com uma sensibilidade moral abordando questões que tocam diretamente a nossa consciência e com uma habilidade de escrita que faz dele um interlocutor para muitas gerações.
Desta forma ele não só transmite uma mensagem como também transmite uma experiência. Mais do que contar o que viveu, ele faz um exercício de raciocínio sobe o espírito humano. A todo o sofrimento que viu e passou, transformou-o numa reflexão, surgindo assim “Se isto é um homem”.

ARBEIT MACHT FREI (O trabalho liberta)

Neste livro, ficamos a conhecer uma condição humana miserabilista: aquela em que nada lhes pertence – “…a roupa, os sapatos, até os cabelos; se falarmos, não nos escutarão e, se nos escutassem, não perceberiam. Tirar-nos-ão também o nome…”.
Escravizados e sem honra, progressivamente mais abjetos. Espaço, onde a humanidade é sepultada à entrada. Será isto um homem?

Uma vida preenchida de “…sair e voltar, trabalhar, dormir e comer, adoecer, curar-se ou morrer.” Será isto um homem?

Um local onde não devem, não podem sonhar, pois “…o momento de consciência que acompanha o acordar é o sofrimento mais intenso.” Será isto um homem?

Um homem sem casa, sem hábitos, sem roupa, sem nome (apenas um número gravado na pele) reduzido ao sofrimento, à extrema carência, esquecido, sem dignidade, sem esperança (cientes que apenas abandonarão aquele espaço “deitados”, ou pela “chaminé”) acaba por se perder também a si próprio. Será isto um homem?

First off, I must point out that I think it is very difficult to rate someone's personal and emotional account of an event in their life, and even more so when it was a tragedy like the holocaust. That being said, I of course rated the novel five stars, because it is not only a completely true account but it was also written brilliantly. I had the chance before I read this book to read "Man's Search for Meaning", which is another book about the experiences of a survivor of a concentration camp, and while it was interesting and meaningful, I found it much harder to engage in it, as the writer was a psychologist who analyzed every human behavior, much of which went over my head. I suppose I could describe the two books as this: The man who thought (Primo Levi) and the man who felt (Viktor Frankl).

I commend this book because it has a much more straight-forward approach to Primo Levi's trials in Auschwitz, an Italian citizen who was arrested after being discovered as part of a resistance against the Nazi regime. Primo makes it very clear what conditions were like, and not only does he make you feel startlingly so like you were there yourself, but he does not hide the fact that some of the things he did were not very compassionate. He explains to the reader that the prisoners of the camp were stripped of their humanity, and the way that he survived was not by sharing his bread or taking pity, but by looking mostly out for himself. Most of all, he survived by his intelligence and immense amount of luck. Primo had several close calls while in the camp and I assure you that as you near the end, you will be touched as he becomes reacquainted with a bit of his humanity. He does make a point in interviews later in his life, however, to mention that victims cannot have the compassion that they carried before the monstrous Holocaust.

* 3,5
Uma leitura difícil, um relato duro, objectivo e distante sobre a experiência de um sobrevivente do Holocausto. Apesar de marcante e inesquecível, esperava um outro tipo de leitura. Faltou para mim o lado mais emocional, mais afectivo, mais pessoal. Talvez o relato feito desta forma seja o único possível ao autor após o processo de desumanização de que foi alvo e de todo o sofrimento pelo qual passou. O que resulta é um documento histórico de valor incalculável, um testemunho pormenorizado, objectivo e cru sobre aquilo que (vergonhosamente) aconteceu nos campos de concentração. O que este livro me deixou e acrescentou ao meu conhecimento sobre esta época negra da nossa História, foi sobretudo uma nova visão sobre os sobreviventes, sobre a estrutura mental necessária a quem não desiste face às adversidades e que tudo faz para "viver mais um dia", apesar de tudo.

Para a minha opinião mais aprofundada: clique aqui para ver no blogue ou aqui para ver no Youtube.

This book is perhaps easier to read than one might imagine.

Primo Levi, aged 25, was attached to a resistance group in Italy. He had recently graduated from Turin University as a chemist, and he was Jewish.

He was captured by German forces in 1944, and deported …. And from then on followed a year of hell in Auschwitz.

Levi writes beautifully, but with a cool voice, so the reader is able to stand slightly back from the horrendous experiences that he describes.

Not everyone is the same in the camp. Not only are there differences between prisoners (the groups include Jews and criminals, and people given political status), but there are differences between the men in each of these groups.

“In history and in life one sometimes seems to glimpse a ferocious law which states: “to he that has, will be given; to he that has not, will be taken away”. In the Lager (camp), where man is alone and where the struggle for life is reduced to its primordial mechanism, this unjust law is openly in force, is recognized by all. With the adaptable, the strong and astute individuals, even the leaders willingly keep contacts, sometimes even friendly contact, because they hope later to perhaps derive some benefit. But with the Muselmänner, the men in decay, it is not even worth speaking….one knows that they are only here on a visit, that in a few weeks nothing will remain of them but a handful of ashes in some near-by field.”

Levi’s story is one of survival of the fittest; not only those able to do the work physically required of them, but those who are intelligent, tenacious and cunning, who are able to think and act constructively even when they are starving, and everything around them is a gruelling treadmill of overwork and petty rules, of cold and lack of sleep, of wheeling and dealing to get an extra mouthful of bread.

He even talks of rare friendship and cooperation, especially towards the end of the book, when he was moved to the sick block with scarlet fever. Others there are very ill with conditions like typhus and diphtheria. The Russians advance and the Germans desert the camp. Somehow, some of these sick prisoners - using every ounce of initiative and determination that they have left - hang on to life until the Russians arrive.

Of the ninety-four men who were deported to Auschwitz from Levi's resistance group, only twenty-one survived.

Inicio a leitura.
Um poema "Se isto é um homem!"

Senti-me irremediavelmente presa.
Julgada.
Demasiado afortunada.

Primo Levi apela à memória e insurge-se veemente. Amaldiçoa a inconsciência, a cegueira, daquele que a corrompe ou a ignora.

Deveríamos todas as manhãs beber e digerir estas palavras?
Talvez. Até ficar intrínseco, diluído no nosso ser, para nunca esquecer. Até provocar uma mudança. VERDADEIRA! PROFUNDA! Sim, porque continuamos a testemunhar tantos flagelos por esse mundo fora.

Uma narração com uma lucidez extrema ao qual não ficarão indiferentes.

Sim, é mais um testemunho entre tantos mil, mas a escrita despojada, seca, descarnada, despe-nos até ao âmago, ficamos translúcidos.
É poderoso o seu discurso e é absolutamente inconcebível o que o homem foi capaz de fazer ao homem.

Vale mais estrelas do que as podemos quantificar.

"Então, pela primeira vez nos apercebemos de que a nossa língua carece de palavras para exprimir esta ofensa, a destruição de um homem."

Just after reading a few pages, I didn't want to continue reading the book. I felt like it would get more depressive and perhaps gruesome. Somehow I continued to reading, and realized that Levi is such a wonderful man. The writing is measured, humane, and above all wise. As I finished reading it, I felt like I was in a good company. His way of telling the story is nothing but constructive. Not with big acts of cruelty but with small gestures he would reveal what people can do to one another.

During epidemic (including this one) we hear that the poor suffer the most. They are also the ones who die in large numbers. In a perverse way, this theory also holds true for Nazi camps. Levi tells us that highly skilled people who went into Nazi camps, even though they were fraction of total population, they were in majority of those who survived. Clearly, the Nazis even in their hatred were quite pragmatic, mirroring the ''sly'' Jews (as Jews are portrayed in western narratives).

What I like most about the book is that there is always room for compassion, irrespective of what the crime is, who the criminals (or victims) are. Levi narrative shows that compassion.

Rilettura obbligata che dovevo ri-fare da troppo tempo. Non mi giudico capace di poter commentare Se questo è un uomo, nessuno credo che lo sia. Anzi, non credo che si debba commentarlo punto: leggerlo sì, sempre, tutti; comprenderlo; "scolpirlo nella memoria". Dire l'indicibile, lo ha fatto Levi: a noi tocca la vergogna, la rabbia che muove il sole e l'altre stelle.

A noi la responsabilità di evitare che l'uomo torni a essere cosa davanti all'uomo.