There is a lot to deal with in this book. There are sure to be several different points that impact each of us differently. For me, the final chapter really stood out. It stood out because we tend not to hear about that part. The story is usually told in this way: the Jews were taken to concentration camps, they were treated horribly, millions of them died, and then the Allies came in and saved them. While this is a very basic summary, it still follows the basic outline. But this way of telling the story leaves out a crucial part: the in-between, the part where the Germans abandoned the camps but the Allies hadn’t arrived yet. I never realized that this part existed until three years ago when I watched the movie Empire of the Sun. This movie isn’t about German camps or even about Jews, rather it is about a British boy in Japan who is sent to a camp. It’s not the same situation, but there is a prison camp that is abandoned by the guards and the protagonist must survive for a few days before being rescued. Although seeing this movie meant that I was aware of the fact that liberation wasn’t immediate, I was not prepared for the horrors that Levi describes in his account. It was only ten days, but I’m sure it felt like an eternity. I can’t imagine just how agonizing those days were. No matter how much Levi describes it, we simply cannot fully understand what it was like to experience such things. I pray that we never gain such experience or any even remotely close to it.
P.S. I commented on Rachael’s and Moriah’s posts.
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