The drowned and the saved" is an essay which best represents the dramatic and lucid analysis of the tragic reality of the concentration camps gained by Primo Levi

The drowned and the saved" is an essay which best represents the dramatic and lucid analysis of the tragic reality of the concentration camps gained by Primo Levi through the years and thanks to the different works written on the subject.

The foreword focuses on various concepts that will be more widely covered in the book: from tearing of memories about this dehumanizing experience the admonition against all those who "couldn't know", often decisive nuances that stand out the prisoners to the systematic use of violence and humiliation.

The title of the essay refers to the distinction that Levi highlights of all the concentration camp prisoners in relation to the quality and quantity of torture and prostrations they suffered; the "saved" are those prisoners who, like him, they managed to survive this dramatic experience, for reasons that can be very different, from selfishness to espionage, a collaboration with the Nazis to make a fortune doing very useful to the oppressors; "submerged" are all those who do not have it made, which were overwhelmed by fatigue and malnutrition, from humiliation or pride to withstand the oppressors, those that have hit bottom, the only ones that could transmit a testimony full of Nazi cruelty and abomination.

The first chapter of the essay is dedicated to human memory, "wonderful tool but fallacious" according to the same words of Levi; the author examines the various reasons that may have brought an oppressor and an oppressed to delete entirely, slightly change or filter your memories about the experience of lager.

The "saved" trying to tell their experience in order to make it known and by cause in individuals a refusal in respect of certain ideologies, but sometimes their mind produces errors or omissions and that's because basically the vet tries shame and guilt for the fact that have survived in place of other more worthy of him, or in some cases to have been a survivor at the expense of the lives of others.

The oppressor tends to convince himself that the excuse "I did it because I have commanded you, I could not do otherwise" deletes all the horrors committed and the faults of which it is spotted, while other, more cold and insensitive are well aware of their faults but they are hiding behind this excuse and not trying nor remorse or guilt.

In the second chapter, Primo Levi discusses the so-called "grey zone", which includes the prisoners-the officials that prisoners have dropped to terms with the oppressors, providing their assistance regarding the humiliation and the extermination of prisoners in exchange for food, drinks, clothes and especially in exchange of a small window of salvation.

Levi distinguishes three different causes leading to the recruitment of prisoners-officials; on the side of the oppressed was the aspiration to treatment less worse and Levi writes, "as it is tougher oppression, much is more widespread among the oppressed the willingness to cooperate with the power"; torturers recruiting these individuals for two main reasons: the need for external auxiliary which often delegavano the "dirty work" and even the cruel intent to prove that Jews, as belonging to a race, you bend to any humiliation, even to mortify and destroy other Jews.

Levi points out that the guilt and shame tested by some of these individuals in some occasions are not sufficient to make them fall into the category of victims, he defines "half consciences".

The feeling of shame and guilt are due the different cases of suicide among Veterans (including Levi); the author dwells, due to numerous questions on the subject, on the impossibility of conceiving suicide within the concentration camp; first suicide ensues, in his opinion, by a well-considered and not instinctive and Lager "lived more animals than humans"; Secondly, the prisoners were soffermavano more about basic needs like hunger, thirst and cold resistance and fatigue, so "don't have time to focus on the idea of death" who desperately sought to avoid; Finally, suicide is generally from a guilt feeling away unpunished, among the inmates, which complement each other and imprisonment as a punishment to a fault more alleged that real.

The author dwells in two separate chapters on the importance of communication between prisoners, including prisoners and oppressed, and with the outside world, and on the condition of the intellectuals in concentration camps, disadvantaged if forced to do manual work, favorites if their knowledge could be helpful to the glaring na purposes