Survival in Auschwitz

Metadata

• Author: Primo Levi
• Full Title: Survival in Auschwitz
• Category: #books

Highlights

• If you and your child were going to be killed tomorrow, would you not give him to eat today? (Location 151)
• Here we received the first blows: and it was so new and senseless that we felt no pain, neither in body nor in spirit. Only a profound amazement: how can one hit a man without anger? (Location 173)
• Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable. (Location 181)
• Among the forty-five people in my wagon only four saw their homes again; and it was by far the most fortunate wagon. (Location 198)
• Renzo stayed an instant too long to say goodbye to Francesca, his fiancée, and with a single blow they knocked him to the ground. It was their everyday duty. (Location 236)
• Then for the first time we became aware that our language lacks words to express this offence, the demolition of a man. (Location 365)
• Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often easily loses himself. (Location 376)
• The confusion of languages is a fundamental component of the manner of living here: one is surrounded by a perpetual Babel, in which everyone shouts orders and threats in languages never heard before, and woe betide whoever fails to grasp the meaning. (Location 603)
• that precisely because the Lager was a great machine to reduce us to beasts, we must not become beasts; that even in this place one can survive, and therefore one must want to survive, to tell the story, to bear witness; and that to survive we must force ourselves to save at least the skeleton, the scaffolding, the form of civilization. We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last—the power to refuse our consent. (Location 657)
• is it really necessary to elaborate a system and put it into practice? Or would it not be better to acknowledge one’s lack of a system? (Location 668)
• they find themselves inserted in an unknown environment, among hostile companions never seen before, with leaders whose characters they do not know and against whom it is consequently difficult to guard themselves. (Location 987)

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title: Survival in Auschwitz longtitle: Survival in Auschwitz author: Primo Levi url: , source: kindle last_highlight: 2018-08-08 type: books tags:

Survival in Auschwitz

Metadata

• Author: Primo Levi
• Full Title: Survival in Auschwitz
• Category: #books

Highlights

• If you and your child were going to be killed tomorrow, would you not give him to eat today? (Location 151)
• Here we received the first blows: and it was so new and senseless that we felt no pain, neither in body nor in spirit. Only a profound amazement: how can one hit a man without anger? (Location 173)
• Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable. (Location 181)
• Among the forty-five people in my wagon only four saw their homes again; and it was by far the most fortunate wagon. (Location 198)
• Renzo stayed an instant too long to say goodbye to Francesca, his fiancée, and with a single blow they knocked him to the ground. It was their everyday duty. (Location 236)
• Then for the first time we became aware that our language lacks words to express this offence, the demolition of a man. (Location 365)
• Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often easily loses himself. (Location 376)
• The confusion of languages is a fundamental component of the manner of living here: one is surrounded by a perpetual Babel, in which everyone shouts orders and threats in languages never heard before, and woe betide whoever fails to grasp the meaning. (Location 603)
• that precisely because the Lager was a great machine to reduce us to beasts, we must not become beasts; that even in this place one can survive, and therefore one must want to survive, to tell the story, to bear witness; and that to survive we must force ourselves to save at least the skeleton, the scaffolding, the form of civilization. We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last—the power to refuse our consent. (Location 657)
• is it really necessary to elaborate a system and put it into practice? Or would it not be better to acknowledge one’s lack of a system? (Location 668)
• they find themselves inserted in an unknown environment, among hostile companions never seen before, with leaders whose characters they do not know and against whom it is consequently difficult to guard themselves. (Location 987)