“The conviction that life has a purpose is rooted in every fibre of man, it is a property of the human substance. Free men give many names to this purpose, and think and talk a lot about its nature. But for us the question is simpler. Today, in this place, our only purpose is to reach the spring. At the moment we care about nothing else. Behind this aim there is not at the moment any other aim. In the morning while we wait endlessly lined up in roll-call square for the time to leave for work, while every breath of wind penetrates our clothes and runs in violent shivers over our defenceless bodies, and everything is grey around us, and we are grey; in the morning, when it is still dark, we all look at the sky in the east to spot the first signs of a milder season, and the rising of the sun is commented on every day: today a little earlier than yesterday, today a little warmer than yesterday, in two months, in a month, the cold will call a truce and we will have one enemy less. Today the sun rose bright and clear for the first time from the horizon of mud. It is a Polish sun, cold, white, distant, and only warms the skin, but when it dissolved the last mists a murmur ran through our colourless numbers, and when even I felt its lukewarmth through my clothes I understood how men can worship the sun.”
Quote by Primo Levi
Work
This book offers a first-hand perspective on the extreme conditions and hardships faced by inmates in the Auschwitz concentration camp, providing a profound and disturbing insight into the human capacity for endurance and resilience amidst unimaginable suffering. more
Author
Chemist and Italian Jewish author, known for his dual identity as a survivor of Nazi concentration camps and a chemist. His works profoundly reflect the moral dilemmas and psychological states of humans in extreme environments. more
You May Also Like
“It was a small room with dim light coming in the window, reminiscent of old Polish films.”
“No man can walk so long in the Shadow that he cannot come again to the Light.”
“sick of it whatever it's called sick of the names I dedicate every pore to what's here”