Primo Levi's Journalistic Objectivity in Survival in Auschwitz

Objectivity as a Survival Strategy

A good journalist reports the news in an objective fashion, observing and describing everything that is taking place regardless of personal bias. Some writers feel so strongly about their own beliefs that, despite attempting to paint a factual picture, their stance on an issue remains apparent. The more closely one is involved with a topic, the more difficult it is to separate oneself from the written piece. Imagine, then, how difficult it was for Primo Levi, author of Survival in Auschwitz, to take a journalistic approach to his experiences in a German death camp. Yet that is precisely what he did. He clearly documented life, and death, in the camp despite being completely — physically, emotionally, and spiritually — part of those horrible days.

Levi explains in the "Afterword" of Survival in Auschwitz, in an interview with the author Philip Roth, that he used his recording of day-to-day occurrences as a means of survival and of staying mentally balanced: "And yet what you say, that for me thinking and observing were survival factors, is true..." (1996, p. 180). The opening of Survival in Auschwitz takes place aboard the train bringing Jews to the camp. Levi's clinical and distanced descriptions are so vivid that the reader is automatically drawn into the action. He writes: "Exactly like this, detail for detail: goods wagons closed from the outside, with men, women and children pressed together without pity, like cheap merchandise, for a journey towards nothingness, a journey down there, towards the bottom" (1996, p. 17), and "It was the very discomfort, the blows, the cold, the thirst that kept us aloft in the void of bottomless despair, both during the journey and afterward."

The Loss of Identity at Auschwitz

At the beginning of their torment, the prisoners are unique individuals with their own names, family experiences, histories, and specialties. Gradually they become non-citizens, ostracized and deprived of their identities. They are taken from their loved ones, separated from all their belongings, and transported like animals to a slaughterhouse. After being packed together into a train like cattle, the prisoners reach Auschwitz and lose all they own except what remains in the recesses of their minds. It is the last time they will ever have any possessions — even their own bodies. They all begin to look the same as they receive identical clothing and have their heads shaved. They have been rendered non-human.

The Scientist in the Death Camp

In his conversation with Roth, Levi reflects on his own role: "I remember having lived my Auschwitz year in a condition of spiritedness. I don't know if this depended on my professional background, or an unsuspected stamina, or on a sound instinct" (1996, p. 180). He never stopped recording the experiences and individuals around him, retaining a distinct image of them in his memory. His scientific side compelled him to make sense of the horrors taking place around him, even when everything seemed completely insane. He describes having "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 caused him to vacillate continually between hope and despair.

References

Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz. New York: Touchstone, 1996.