The Nazis victims did not choose to be victims, and they could not choose to stop being victims. The corpses were then taken to the crematoria to be burned. Indeed, the last lines of The Drowned and the Saved make Levi's position on this issue explicit: Let it be clear that to a greater or lesser degree all [perpetrators] were responsible, but it must be just as clear that behind their responsibility stands that great majority of Germans who accepted in the beginning, out of mental laziness, myopic calculation, stupidity, and national pride the beautiful words of Corporal Hitler, followed him as long as luck and the lack of scruples favored him, were swept away by his ruin, afflicted by deaths, misery, and remorse, and rehabilitated a few years later as the result of an unprincipled political game.55. This is not to say that the people saved were those who most deserved to be savedprobably quite the opposite. The Drowned and the Saved - Primo Levi - Google Books An editor In his epilogue, Todorov further distinguishes between the teleological and the intersubjective. . First, Starachowice was able to meet Himmler's conditions for using Jewish labor in that their work was directly linked to the war effort. He sees Rumkowski as an example of Anna Freud's concept of identification with the aggressor.17 Rumkowski did not simply comply with the Nazi orders so as to save liveshe thought like a Nazi and acted like one. The words "gray zone, useless violence and shame" pay special attention to the inmates who had survived the initial selection and continued increasing their chances of survival. My act will prove to everyone what is the right thing to do.12 Here he acted in accordance with the deontological approach, refusing to collaborate with evil no matter what the consequences. (199). Browning examines the strategies used by Jewish prisoners to survive; he finds, not surprisingly, that those willing to exploit the corruption of the German guards and managers had the best chance. Even so, Melson contends that his parents should be located at the outer edges of the gray zone because they, too, were forced to make choices that should not be judged according to everyday standards of moral behavior.30 For example, his parents initially asked friends to give them their identification papers so they could move to a different part of Poland and live there under the friends identities. You can help us out by revising, improving and updating Individual motivations are many, and collaborators may be judged only by those who have resisted such coercion. In The Drowned and the Saved, Levi does not explicitly discuss the conditions faced by women in the camps. Alan Rosenberg and Gerald E. Myers (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), 224. Summary In a seminal 1986 essay, Primo Levi coined the term the "Grey Zone" to describe the morally ambiguous world inside Auschwitz concentration camp, where the clear-cut victim/perpetrator binary broke down. Browning concludes that such strategies of alleviation and compliance, while neither heroic nor admirable, without doubt saved Jewish lives that otherwise would have been lost. It is written by Pimo Levi, an Italian Jew who was in . Order our The Drowned and the Saved Study Guide. The world of the Lager was so insane, so far removed from the niceties of everyday reality, that we do not have the moral authority to judge the actions of its victims. Best summary PDF, themes, and quotes. Most survivors come from the tiny privileged minority who get more food. Given an apparent choice between life and death, a person cannot be blamed for choosing life.31 While many moralistsKantians in particularmight disagree with this claim, it is clear that Melson's argument begins with Levi's original notion and attempts to expand it to Jews living on false papers. The photo was taken surreptitiously from Crematorium V. USHMM, courtesy Pastwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau w Owicimiu. As head of the Judenrat (Jewish Council), Rumkowski chose the utilitarian approach to his dilemma: he hoped that by working with the Nazis, and proving to them that the d ghetto was so productive that it was worth maintaining, he could save as many Jewish lives as possible. Berel Lang, Primo Levi: The Matter of a Life (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013), 125.

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