. 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. Written by people who wish to remain anonymous Subjectivity and irony The irony of subjectivity comes through loud and clear in this account of Nazi concentration camps. Sometimes villagers would feel sorry for the prisoners and tell them how the war was progressing. He did not suggest that we ignore the moral implications of the actions of the special squads or of Chaim Rumkowski; indeed he insisted that we examine these implications carefully. While these analyses are admittedly simplistic, they are sufficient to indicate my point that the acts of the Sonderkommandos would be difficult to justify using traditional moral theories. The SS never took direct control. Under Bentham's Utilitarian Principle, one should act to bring the greatest amount of pleasure to the greatest number of people while inflicting the least amount of harm to the least number of people. 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. This is not the same as the Golden Rule, which states that one should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.2 The Golden Rule suggests that we are motivated to treat others well by self-interestthat is, by the desire to be treated well ourselves. This Study Guide consists of approximately 34 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Drowned and the Saved. 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. The Drowned and the Saved - Primo Levi - Google Books By the end of his life survivor Primo Levi had become increasingly convinced that the lessons of the Holocaust were destined to be lost as. Not affiliated with Harvard College. The photo was taken surreptitiously from Crematorium V. USHMM, courtesy Pastwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau w Owicimiu. Browning singles out Jeremiah Wilczek, a former gangster who connived his way into a leadership position in the Lagerrat (camp council) and Lagerpolizei (camp police). In certain ways, this distinction mimics the distinction between the consequentialist and the deontologist. The drowned, meanwhile, are those who do not organize, who pass their time thinking of home or complaining, and who quickly perish. Neither forced religious conversion nor phony confession would have saved them. Despite this concession, Rubinstein rejects Levi's characterization of Rumkowski as a resident of the gray zone. Indeed, the primary purpose of the concept of the gray zone is to point out the morally dubious actions of many of the Jewish victims. Kant would say people always have choices, however; the men should have refused to act immorally even if that refusal resulted in their own immediate death. Chaim Mordechai Rumkowski, Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team, http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/rumkowski.html (accessed March 16, 2016). Would not those who had been trying to keep the Jews of the ghettos alive as long as possible subsequently have been hailed for their efforts?24, Yet Weinberg's argument fails as a justification for placing Rumkowski into Levi's gray zone, for as Lang asserted, the gray zone is NOT reserved for suspended judgmentsthose made through the lens of moral hindsight.. Toggle navigation . In my view, what is at stake here is the possibility of ethics in a world misconstrued as a universal gray zone. SS ritual dehumanizes newcomers and veterans treat them as competitors. IN HIS MUCH-DISCUSSED CHAPTER "The Gray Zone" from The Drowned and the Saved, Primo Levi recounts the disturbing story of the morally corrupt Judenrat leader of the Lodz ghetto, Chaim Rumkowski, whose willing collaboration with the Nazis nonetheless failed to save him from the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Richard L. Rubinstein, Gray into Black: The Case of Mordecai Chaim Rumkowski, in Gray Zones: Ambiguity and Compromise in the Holocaust and its Aftermath, ed. This was the chief method employed by the Germans to break the prisoners' spirits. The Drowned and the Saved, however, was written 40 years later and is the work of memory and reflection not only on the original events, but also on how the world has dealt with the Holocaust in the intervening years. Levi does not spare himself: "This very book is drenched in memory . It was their job to herd selected Jews to the gas chambers by lying to them, telling them that they were going to take showers. Each individual is so complex that there is no point in trying to foresee his behavior, all the more in extreme situations; nor is it possible to foresee one's own behavior" (60). Her father urged her to move to Paris, saying: No one will know. I would argue that it is appropriate to expand Levi's zone beyond Auschwitz so long as its population is made up only of victims. For instance: Levi's innocuous Kapo is replaced by one who beats not as incentive, warning, or punishment, but simply to hurt and humiliate. Here Todorov allies himself with Kant's deontological approach, essentially re-stating Kant's second formulation of the Categorical Imperative. For them, all Jews were condemned by genetics; there was literally nothing a Jewish person could do or say to escape annihilation. All of these unusual conditions, together with the fact that no selection took place when the prisoners were finally transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau in July 1944, meant that a much larger number of prisoners survived here than in other such camps. Certainly some of them could have chosen to be martyrs or rescuers. one is never in another's place. Translated by Raymond Rosenthal. She uses this story to illustrate her contention that Jewish tradition demands of women that they give up their lives rather than submit to rape. Rubinstein is careful to examine the meaning of Levi's terminology as it appeared in the original Italian. It is written by Pimo Levi, an Italian Jew who was in . Thus, the gray zone refers to a reality so extreme that those who have not experienced it have no right to judge. But regardless of their actions Jews were condemned. . " He had no concern for the individual. In this sense, Levi may be harsher in his evaluation of Rumkowski than is Rubinstein. First published in Italy in 1986. This choice could lead to a secular salvation.15. 4 (2010): 40321. As in all the other chapters of his book, Levi discusses the complexity of these situations. In her next section, Horowitz compares the portrayal of female collaborators to that of men in Marcel Ophuls's films The Sorrow and the Pity and Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie. On September 4, 1942, Rumkowski delivered his infamous Address at the Time of the Deportation of the Children from d Ghetto.20 Rubinstein quotes Rumkowski as saying, I share your pain. Print Word PDF. Indeed, Todorov builds his new morality on his observations of the inherent goodness that remains in individuals even in the worst of conditions. On the other hand, he did argue that, because of their status as coerced victims, we do not have the moral authority to condemn their actions. To say that Muhsfeldt, for that brief instant, was at the gray zone's extreme boundary does not mean that perpetrators and bystanders deserve the same moral consideration and leniency that Levi demands for those who were condemned to live in horrific conditions as they awaited their seemingly inevitable deaths. Yet, as we have seen with Todorov, it has become common to expand Levi's gray zone to include non-victims. This expansion is neither hairsplitting nor evasive, although those charges have been raised against it. The intersubjective act, on the other hand, establishes a relationship between two or more individuals. One can give these two categories different names. First, Starachowice was able to meet Himmler's conditions for using Jewish labor in that their work was directly linked to the war effort. when writing The Drowned and the Saved, he was moved to admit that "this man's solitary death, this man's death which had been reserved for him, will bring him glory, not infamy." Order our The Drowned and the Saved Study Guide. The Drowned and the Saved - Chapter 1, The Memory of the Offense Summary & Analysis Primo Levi This Study Guide consists of approximately 34 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Drowned and the Saved. For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription. Using lies and coercion they led thousands of victims to a horrible death. "The Drowned and the Saved Summary". 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. Primo Levi was imprisoned at the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944. Indeed, as we know, many did make such choices. Kant posits that a moral act first requires good will (similar to good intentions). Yet, they viewed the members of the Sonderkommandos as colleagues, as accomplices in their horrific crimes, fellow murderers. The doctor revived her and explained to Muhsfeldt what had happened. The Drowned and the Saved - Preface Summary & Analysis. . From the heroic perspective, it does not matter that the Warsaw Rising failed. Her sacrifice directly benefitted anotherher daughter. The Gray Zone Chapter 3, Shame Chapter 4, Communicating . In "The Gray Zone" (2) Levi challenges the tendency to over-simplify and gloss over unpleasant truths of the inmate hierarchy that inevitably developed in the camps, and that was exacerbated by the Nazi methodology of singling some out for special privileges. They could even choose to be rescuers. Primo Levi. Soon after the war ended, he wrote several books about his experience. This memoir goes far beyond a recapitulation of the concentration camp experience. Even with the show of force the Germans would display, they often lacked the necessary personnel in camps to keep control of the sheer number of prisoners kept there. I agree that we do need more ways of speaking with precision about regions of collaboration and complicity during World War II.57 However, with Levi and Lang, I oppose moral determinismthe belief that in the contemporary world almost no one can be held completely responsible for his or her acts, and that the job of ethics, in the face of post-modern relativism, is to understand why people commit acts of immorality without condemning them for doing so. Some historians believe that Levi committed suicide, overwhelmed by a penetrating sense of guilt at having survived an experience that killed so many. Todorov presents himself as an admirer of Primo Levi, and in this book he refers to or quotes from Levi on forty-six of his two hundred and ninety-six pages. In the concentration camp, says Levi, it was usually "the selfish, the violent, the insensitive, the collaborators of the 'gray zone,' the spies" who survived ["the saved"] while the others did not ["the drowned"] (82). Even in the worst of circumstances (Auschwitz), it cannot be extinguished. As Levi reminds us, Rumkowski and his family were killed in Auschwitz in August 1944. The Nazis were not trying to coerce their victims into any form of action. Unlike the Spanish Inquisition, or even the authorities of George Orwell's 1984, the Nazis did not torture to change the beliefs or behaviors of their victims. In 1946, Gandhi said in an interview that if he had been a Jew under the Nazis he would have committed public suicide rather than allow himself to be re-located into a ghetto.4 From this perspective, there is no question that the members of the Sonderkommandos would be condemned as collaborators and murderers. In his landmark book The Drowned and the Saved (first published in 1986), Primo Levi introduced the notion of a moral gray zone. The author of this essay re-examines Levi's use of the term. Rubinstein's position here seems to grudgingly accept consequentialism, but only when calculated sacrifices are made in the morally correct frame of mind. The Drowned and the Saved study guide contains a biography of Primo Levi, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. We are neither angels nor demons but ordinary human beings comprising both good AND evil. http://www.amazon.com/review/R3GSXXVIVI3IV5/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0691096589&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=283155&store=books (accessed March 16, 2016).

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