Because we've heard and read and seen so much about it, we think we know about the Holocaust. I felt grateful to Levi for teaching the mechanics of the camp, its routines, its ploys, its organization.
It seems like it's organization that the men cling to. In their minute by minute fear and terror, they follow the strictly enforced and brutal routines. They cheat, but they don't deviate. There's one scene, in the middle of the narrative, in which a courageous prisoner is hanged before the entire camp. He and a group of others managed to blow up one of the crematoriums. Levi and the rest are in awe of him. They don't say a word. They aren't inspired to emulate him. They don't know what to feel, other than shame. Then they go back to their bunks and carry on. Knowing and expecting their own deaths, they still head back to their bunks and their stratagems for hustling more bread, more soup, a useful rag.
(More tomorrow. It's late.)
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