These events were beyond the control of the Jewish prisoners and, probably, unknown to most of them. . " The SS never took direct control. Individual motivations are many, and collaborators may be judged only by those who have resisted such coercion. He has also written numerous essays on issues in aesthetics, ethics, Holocaust studies, social philosophy, and metaphysics. . In discussing Chaim Rumkowski and the members of the Sonderkommandos, Levi acknowledges that we will never know their exact motivations but asserts that this is irrelevant to their occupancy of the gray zone. Primo Levi is right to demand from us greater moral courage. suicide is an act of man and not of the animal . The gray zone is NOT reserved for good people who lapse into evil or for evil people who try to redeem themselves through an act of goodness. Toggle navigation . He acknowledges that his parents situation, while life-threatening and humiliating, never approached the level of horror and despair faced by Levi and other camp prisoners. The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi | LibraryThing Ethics commonly distinguishes between deontologists and consequentialists. Deontologists, among them Immanuel Kant and the twentieth-century philosopher W.D. They could even choose to be rescuers. In this sense, Levi may be harsher in his evaluation of Rumkowski than is Rubinstein. Indeed, the last lines of The Drowned and the Saved make Levi's position on this issue explicit: Let it be clear that to a greater or lesser degree all [perpetrators] were responsible, but it must be just as clear that behind their responsibility stands that great majority of Germans who accepted in the beginning, out of mental laziness, myopic calculation, stupidity, and national pride the beautiful words of Corporal Hitler, followed him as long as luck and the lack of scruples favored him, were swept away by his ruin, afflicted by deaths, misery, and remorse, and rehabilitated a few years later as the result of an unprincipled political game.55. For example, in his essay Alleviation and Compliance: The Survival Strategies of the Jewish Leadership in the Wierzbnik Ghetto and Starachowice Factory Slave Labor Camps (in the Petropoulos and Roth volume), Christopher Browning examines the actions of prisoners in camps that differ from Auschwitz in that a surprisingly large proportion of their inmates survived. I reject this view on moral grounds, and I will show that Levi does so as well. Translated by Raymond Rosenthal. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. She asserts that Rumkowski acted as the Fhrer of d, noting that he went so far as to mint coins with his image on them.14, In his essay Gray into Black: The Case of Mordecai Chaim Rumkowski, Richard Rubinstein presents a scathing critique of Levi's decision to place Rumkowski in the gray zone. GradeSaver, 5 May 2019 Web. Not affiliated with Harvard College. "Useless Violence" (5) gives examples of how the Nazis tormented their prisoners with "stupid and symbolic violence.". The members of the special squads did the opposite. The Drowned and the Saved - Wikipedia It follows immediately after an extended description of Elias the dwarf, whom Steinberg also remem-bers as extraordinary. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make yourown. But those choices still counted for something. In the entire book, he mentions it only twice. The prisoners were to an equal degree victims. Finally, Horowitz quotes Jean Amry, who says of torture: It is like a rape, a sexual act without the consent of one of the two partners.35. Print Word PDF This section contains 488 words Ultimately, for an act to be good it must accord with his famous Categorical Imperative: one should act as one would have everyone else act in the same circumstances, and always treat others as ends rather than as a means to an end. Quite the contrary, it is at once morally tough-minded and morally imaginative. Survivors such as Primo Levi did engage in self-blame for the tragic choices they had to make or even when they had not transgressed any moral code or principles. He quotes Moses Maimonides, who wrote: If they should say, Give us one of you and we will kill him and if not we will kill all of you, the Jews should allow themselves to be killed and not hand over a single life.16 Yet Rubinstein's condemnation of Rumkowski is not based only on the latter's willingness to sacrifice some for the sake of the rest. On the few occasions when he mentions women (pp. As Lang points out, Levi acknowledged that it might be interesting to compare the actions of ordinary people who chose to become perpetrators with immoral acts committed by victims. Read the Study Guide for The Drowned and the Saved, Will the Barbarians Ever Arrive? In my view, perpetrators and bystanders did not face extenuating circumstances sufficient to justify their inclusion in Levi's gray zone. In her final section, titled The Gray Zone, Horowitz examines the moral ambiguities present in stories of Jewish women who survived by trading sexual services for food or protection. Thus, Melson concedes that his mother acted immorally, yet he argues that her choices, like those of the prisoners Levi describes, were inescapable and dictated by circumstances.. In the latter film, a female collaborator Francoise Hemmerle is portrayed as evil, while her male counterpart, Armand Zuchner, is described simply as an idiot. Horowitz contends that this demonization of female collaborators is widespread and gender-based. 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. Using Kant's criteria, it seems clear that the actions of the special squads were immoral. In 'The Grey Zone', the second chapter and the longest essay in the book, Levi acknowledges the human need to divide the social field into 'us' and 'them . Levi identifies the common impulse to tell the story of "events that for good or evil have marked [one's] entire existence" (149). The Gray Zone Chapter 3, Shame Chapter 4, Communicating . The Drowned and the Saved - Chapter 3, Shame Summary & Analysis Despite this concession, Rubinstein rejects Levi's characterization of Rumkowski as a resident of the gray zone. Do perpetrators who are not victims belong in the gray zone? The intersubjective act, on the other hand, establishes a relationship between two or more individuals. One can give these two categories different names. Nor, finally and most fundamentally, is the Gray Zone a place to which all human beingsby the fact of human frailtyare granted access, since that would then enable them conveniently to respond to any moral charge with the indisputable claim that I'm only human.8. 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. Members of Auschwitz-Birkenau Sonderkommando burn bodies of gassed prisoners outdoors, August 1944. This is the essence of Levi's notion of the gray zone. My primary purpose has been to argue that Primo Levi's term gray zone should be reserved for the purpose for which he intended it. Important as all these topics may be, I argue that to fold them into Levi's notion of the gray zone dilutes the moral force of his position. The rejection of relativism and the defense of ethics are fundamental to the comprehension and proper application of Levi's notion. In this chapter he considers also whether religious belief was useful or comforting, concluding that believers "better resisted the seduction of power [resisted collaborating]" (145) and were less prone to despair. Chapter 7, "Stereotypes," addresses those who question why many concentration camp inmates or ghetto inhabitants did not attempt to escape or rebel, and why many German Jews remained in Germany during Hitler's ascendance. Survivors simplify the past for others to understandstark we/they, friend/enemy, good/evil divisionsbut history is complex. The teleological action, like the consequentialist action, is taken to accomplish a purpose. In all of these respects, there is relevance for those who work with individuals who are seriously ill or disabled, and in a larger sense, the book forces consideration of the many and ongoing instances of man's inhumanity to man. His exploration of what he called the "gray zone" drew attention to the space between the poles of good and evil and to the moments of blurring between victims and perpetrators. This violates the second formulation of the Categorical Imperative, which requires that we always treat others as ends in themselves and never as means (to survival, in this instance). However, as a deontologist, Kant believes moral acts should be motivated by a sense of duty, never by a calculation of self-interest. As Rubinstein agrees that Rumkowski was a victim, the primary disagreement between Levi and Rubinstein may be over the question of whether that victimhood is sufficient to place someone outside our moral jurisdiction. For them, all Jews were condemned by genetics; there was literally nothing a Jewish person could do or say to escape annihilation. First published in Italy in 1986. 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. The speech also gives expression to his rationalization of the grisly task.23 For Rubinstein, as for Kant, good will is a necessary precondition for the possibility of morally justifiable behavior. The first time he states: Between those who are only guards and those who are only inmates stands a host of intermediates occupying what Primo Levi has called the gray zone (a zone that in totalitarian states includes the entire population to one degree or another).45 He then goes on to discuss how prisoner-guards such as the kapos, or by extension Chaim Rumkowski, exert abusive power towards their victims precisely because of their own lack of power in relation to their oppressors. Search for other works by this author on: 2016 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, From a Holocaust Survivors Initiative to a Ministry of Education Project: Fredka Mazia and the First Israeli Youth Journeys to Poland 19651966, Artwork That Helps Frame History: Toward a Visual Historical and Sociological Analysis of Works Created by Prisoners from the Terezin Ghetto, About the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Hannah Arendt, Berel Lang, and the True Meaning of the Gray Zone, Richard Rubinstein, Gerhard Weinberg, and the Case of Chaim Rumkowski, Morally Questionable Expansions of Levi's Gray Zone, Receive exclusive offers and updates from Oxford Academic, Copyright 2023 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. I suffer because of your anguish, and I don't know how I'll survive thiswhere I'll find the strength to do so.21 But Rubinstein does not find this apparent agonizing to be credible: This speech exemplifies Rumkowski's mindset and modus operandi. He states that for Levi, just as there is an objective line between good and evil, there exists the same status for an area between the two.5 He explains Levi's notion of the gray zone by first clarifying the ways in which the term is most often misunderstood: The gray zone is NOT reserved for ethical judgments in which it is difficult to decide whether good or evil dominates.6 The purpose of the gray zone is not to label so-called hard cases. While Levi acknowledges that these exist, not all hard cases are in the gray zone and not all moral situations in the gray zone are hard cases.7. With his emphasis on caring, Todorov adds a dash of Heidegger, Levinas, and Buber into the mix. While some scholars have expanded Primo Levi's term gray zone in appropriate and insightful ways, others have misused it so completely that it is now in danger of losing its essential meaning. Sander H. Lee is Professor of Philosophy at Keene State College in New Hampshire. The woman's guardian angel discovers that she once gave a beggar a small onion, and this one tiny act of kindness is enough to rescue her from Hell. Jonathan Petropoulos and John K. Roth, Prologue: The Gray Zones of the Holocaust, in Petropoulos and Roth, Gray Zones, xviii. . The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi - Preface summary and analysis. Summary In a seminal 1986 essay, Primo Levi coined the term the "Grey Zone" to describe the morally ambiguous world inside Auschwitz concentration camp, where the clear-cut victim/perpetrator binary broke down. Most survivors come from the tiny privileged minority who get more food. Adam Czerniakw, Jewish Virtual Library, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Czerniakow.html (accessed March 16, 2016). For instance: Levi's innocuous Kapo is replaced by one who beats not as incentive, warning, or punishment, but simply to hurt and humiliate. 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. one is never in another's place. To his parents disgust, the Zamojskis demanded an exorbitant sum of money. Morality was transformed. . The last part of the book consists of letters between Germans and Levi' they ask questions about his experiences and his feelings about his captors, and he answers honestly, describing his ordeal and stating clearly what he sees. Levi begins it by discussing a phenomenon that occurred following liberation from the camps: many who had been incarcerated committed suicide or were profoundly depressed. Survival in Auschwitz Chapter 9. The Drowned and the Saved Summary Rubinstein maintains that Levi saw all people as centaurstorn between two natures. Levi uses the example of a soccer game played between the SS and the members of the Sonderkommandos. Yet, in his final work, The Drowned and the Saved, Levi painted a radically different picture of the Holocaust. One may absolve those who are heavily coerced and minimally guilty: functionaries who suffer with the masses but get an extra (read more from the Chapter 2, The Gray Zone Summary), Get The Drowned and the Saved from Amazon.com. Fundamental to his purpose is the fear that what happened once can happen (and in some respects, has happened) again. Their heads were shaved, their clothing taken and replaced with identical striped shirt and pants that looked similar to pajamas. This condition did not apply to perpetrators or bystanders. Jonathan Petropoulos and John K. Roth (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), 299. Those who were not victims did have meaningful choices: they could choose not to engage in evil. . (199). The photo was taken surreptitiously from Crematorium V. USHMM, courtesy Pastwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau w Owicimiu. In the world there is not just black and white, [Levi] writes, but a vast zone of gray consciences that stands between the great men of evil and the pure victims.48, Todorov appears to believe that Levi intended to include all Germans in the gray zone, including the great men of evil mentioned above. Given an apparent choice between life and death, a person cannot be blamed for choosing life.31 While many moralistsKantians in particularmight disagree with this claim, it is clear that Melson's argument begins with Levi's original notion and attempts to expand it to Jews living on false papers. Gerhard L. Weinberg, Gray Zones in Raul Hilberg's work, in Petropoulos and Roth, Gray Zones, 75. Read Argumentative Essays On The Drowned And The Saved - Primo Levi and other exceptional papers on every subject and topic college can throw at you. In his recent book Primo Levi: The Matter of a Life, Berel Lang argues that Levi opposes this view. Privilege defends and protects privilege. He concludes that Levi's desperate attempt to understand the perpetrators led to his suicide. One nature is rationally moral while the other is animalistic and amoral. Tzvetan Todorov, Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in the Concentration Camps (New York: Henry Holt, 1996), 12. Primo Levi. Using these false papers, the Melsons were able to survive the war. Preferably the worst survived, the selfish, the violent, the insensitive, the collaborators of the gray zone, the spies.44, Todorov disagrees. Louis Fischer, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (New York: HarperCollins, 1983), 348. He suggests that Levi strove to understand the Germans not as monsters, but as ordinary people caught up in a totalitarian hell in which no one could be held morally responsible for his or her acts, no matter how brutal. You can help us out by revising, improving and updating Levi claims that only those willing to engage in the most selfish actions survived while the most moral people died: The saved of the Lager were not the best, those predestined to do good, the bearers of a message: what I [saw] and lived through proved the exact contrary. . " When Melson asked his mother about the fate of the real Zamojskis, she indicated that she neither knew nor cared, as they had chosen greed over their moral duty to help friends. 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.