Somehow his scientific side needs to make sense of the horrors that are taking place about him, regardless that everything seems completely insane. He states he had "the curiosity of the naturalist who finds himself transplanted into an environment that is monstrous but new, monstrously new." He adds that he "thought too much" while in Auschwitz, which only made him continually vacillate back and forth from hope to despair. Throughout all of his ordeals, Levi continues his writing and scientific analysis for rational answers, to no avail. His goal of finding answers to the cruelty remains unattained. When one of the guards denies even an icicle to decrease a child's thirst, Levi asks in his broken German, 'Warum?' (why?). The guard replies, 'Hier ist kein warum' (there is no why here). At times Levi's observations are so unemotional that he is almost too objective, as if he is going to the other extreme to refrain from becoming angry and distressed. For example, is a part of the book about receiving bread. Individuals who are slotted for death receive an extra portion of stale bread the day before. Levi relates the story about a prisoner who knows he is going to die. When not getting his extra slice of bread, he complains and coerces the guard to give him one. At another point, a man by the name of Kuhn lies on his bed thanking God for not being chosen...

Levis writes that Kuhn is completely out of his mind. Here Kuhn is praying to God for saving him, yet right in the cot next to him is 20-year-old Beppo who "is going to die in the gas chamber the day after tomorrow and knows it, and lies there looking fixedly at the light without saying anything, and without thinking anymore...If I were God, I would spit on Kuhn's prayer."
Levi says he recorded this world in a detached view as a scientist. Yet at times it is impossible to retain his external journalistic objectivity. He cannot continually keep his own emotions out of his descriptions when it comes to dealing with the nonsensical German behavior. When referring to the German physician who stares as if he were a fish in an aquarium, Levi remarks, "That look explains the great insanity of Germany." Similarly, when describing the sadistic assistant who wipes his greasy hands on Levi's shoulder, Levi states: "I judge him and the innumerable others like him, big and small, in Auschwitz and everywhere."

In this book Levi takes the role of the journalist, documenting the people and events around him. For the millions of people who fortunately never had to set foot near this death camp, Levi provides a firsthand look of the story.