“But many, many stories were told; from what could be gathered, all fifty of the mine's inhabitants had reacted on each other, two by two, as in combinatorial analysis, that is to say, everyone with all the others, and especially every man with all the women, old maids or married, and every woman with all the men. All I had to do was to select two names at random, better if different sex, and ask a third person, "What happened with those two?" and lo and behold, a splendid story was unfolded for me, since everyone knew the story of everyone else.” IfsMenPersonsTwoDifferentStoriesAsksNamesSexHappenedMinesHe ManMarriedThirdsMathematicsEvery ManAnalysisFiftySplendidSelectMaidsThird PersonOld Maids Author:Primo Levi
“We must be listened to: above and beyond our personal experience, we have collectively witnessed a fundamental unexpected event, fundamental precisely because unexpected, not foreseen by anyone. It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.” HappensHappenedEventsFundamentalsCoreUnexpectedPersonal ExperiencesAuschwitzAbove And BeyondForeseenUnexpected Events Author:Primo Levi
“They sensed that what had happened around them and in their presence, and in them, was irrevocable. Never again could it be cleansed; it would prove that man, the human species - we, in short - had the potential to construct an enormity of pain, and that pain is the only force created from nothing, without cost and without effort. It is enough not to see, not to listen, not to act.” MenHumansEnoughPainForceEffortHappenedCostProveSpeciesConstructsDeath PenaltyHuman SpeciesIrrevocable Book:The Drowned and the Saved Source: The Drowned and the Saved
“Perhaps one cannot, what is more one must not, understand what happened, because to understand [the Holocaust] is almost to justify...no normal human being will ever be able to identify with Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, Eichmann, and endless others. This dismays us, and at the same time gives us a sense of relief, because perhaps it is desirable that their words (and also, unfortunately, their deeds) cannot be comprehensible to us. They are non-human words and deeds, really counter-human.” GivingHumansAbleHuman BeingsHappenedNormalDeedsEndlessReliefJustifyHolocaustDesirableDismayHimmlerGoebbels Author:Primo Levi
