Once upon a time, in what we would like to believe was a very long time ago, there was something done that no man or woman or child has ever really been able to understand. No matter how many history lectures we sit in, how many books we read, or how many documentaries we watch, never will the depths of horror and dehumanization of the actions in Auschwitz and camps like it be fully understand. At least not by us; us privileged children who drink frosted coffees and complain about going to class at eight in the morning. But we can try, oh yes we can try.
Primo Levi was an Italian man, who had the misfortune to be Jewish when the Nazi's overtook Italy. For this crime -- for the crime of being Jewish -- he was taken away from all that he knew, all that he was, from the country he loved, and made to be a slave and treated as less than a dog. He was labeled a Haftling; a prisoner. All the common decencies we take for granted, this man and his fellows had taken from him. He points out himself that watch was stripped away from him; once he used it to check the time while glancing at his arm, now every glance at his arm he is forced to look at a series of numbers that designates who he is, or at least, who he is to his captors.
I can not say much about this reading, truly I can not. For me to sit here and say anything at all, to try muse over this man's suffering and water it down to a chosen talking point feels like a disservice to what he went through. To be forced to cut his nails with his teeth, to sleep with one's belongings stuffed beneath their head, to live in a place unknowing what is happening because they do not speak your language, but having to know or facing dire consequences.
Primo Levi says at one point: "One learn quickly enough to wipe out the past and the future when one is forced to." This position is I believe the most heartbreaking thing about his journey. Through whatever pain we have, through whatever strife we may have, we at least have the option to think of tomorrow. To think of the sun shinning on the other side of the long night we are in. For him, for something like him forced into a camp to be made a slave and treated as he is less than human, he can not dream of a tomorrow, because the certainty of even the next moment is taken. Their is no sun, their is not even stars to light up his night as he walks in it.
Their is no happily ever after to this story. Their never will be. But we can't stop sharing this story. Or else we might get another once upon a time just like it again.
{P.S. I commented on Eliza and Osten's posts.}
Primo Levi was an Italian man, who had the misfortune to be Jewish when the Nazi's overtook Italy. For this crime -- for the crime of being Jewish -- he was taken away from all that he knew, all that he was, from the country he loved, and made to be a slave and treated as less than a dog. He was labeled a Haftling; a prisoner. All the common decencies we take for granted, this man and his fellows had taken from him. He points out himself that watch was stripped away from him; once he used it to check the time while glancing at his arm, now every glance at his arm he is forced to look at a series of numbers that designates who he is, or at least, who he is to his captors.
I can not say much about this reading, truly I can not. For me to sit here and say anything at all, to try muse over this man's suffering and water it down to a chosen talking point feels like a disservice to what he went through. To be forced to cut his nails with his teeth, to sleep with one's belongings stuffed beneath their head, to live in a place unknowing what is happening because they do not speak your language, but having to know or facing dire consequences.
Primo Levi says at one point: "One learn quickly enough to wipe out the past and the future when one is forced to." This position is I believe the most heartbreaking thing about his journey. Through whatever pain we have, through whatever strife we may have, we at least have the option to think of tomorrow. To think of the sun shinning on the other side of the long night we are in. For him, for something like him forced into a camp to be made a slave and treated as he is less than human, he can not dream of a tomorrow, because the certainty of even the next moment is taken. Their is no sun, their is not even stars to light up his night as he walks in it.
Their is no happily ever after to this story. Their never will be. But we can't stop sharing this story. Or else we might get another once upon a time just like it again.
{P.S. I commented on Eliza and Osten's posts.}
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