Primo Levi
“..I thought about ..essential ambiguity of ..messages each of us leaves behind ..from birth to death ..and of our deep inability to reconstitute a person from them ..man who lives departing from ..man who writes ..anyone who writes ..even if only on walls ..writes in a code that is his alone ..and that ..others don’t know ..even he who speaks.” Primo Levi.
January 12th. 1940 300 Hordyszcze asylum inmates murdered.
January 12th. 1942 Precursor to Nuremberg Trials as Europe and China resolve to try All Axis Leaders War Criminals for war crimes:
“..whether they have ordered ..perpetrated ..or in any way participated in them.”
January 12th. 1943 20,000 Zambrow Jews deported Birkenau along with 1,000 Berlin Jews deported Birkenau.
“..observed by psychologists ..survivors ..are divided into two ..groups ..those who repress ..and those whose memory ..persists ..as though carved in stone. ..I have not forgotten a single thing. ..memory continues to restore ..events ..faces ..words ..sensations ..not a detail was lost. ..It is possible ..distance ..time has accentuated ..tendency to round out ..facts ..heighten ..colors ..this tendency ..temptation ..is an integral part of writing.” Primo Levi.
January 12th. 1944 1,000 Jews from Stutthof Camp to Auschwitz. 95 Lodz Jews to Auschwitz. 23 Trieste Jews to Auschwitz. Allies attack at Monte Cassino.
If This Is a Man
Shema.
You who live safe
In your warm houses,
You who find on returning in the evening,
Hot food and friendly faces:
Consider if this is a man
Who works in the mud
Who does not know peace
Who fights for a scrap of bread
Who dies because of a yes or a no.
Consider if this is a woman,
Without hair and without name
With no more strength to remember,
Her eyes empty and her womb cold
Like a frog in winter.
Meditate that this came about:
I commend these words to you.
Carve them in your hearts
At home, in the street,
Going to bed, rising;
Repeat them to your children,
Or may your house fall apart,
May illness impede you,
May your children turn their faces from you.” Primo Levi.
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