FIFTEEN : Die drei Leute vom Labor

In chapter 15, Primo describes how 174,000 Italian Jews were first arrived at Auschwitz and how only twenty-one now survived. This tells a great deal of how many people were exterminated by the Germans during the Holocaust. It is not in terms of minor massacres but truly a mass extermination of a whole race. In this chapter, Levi mainly talks about how uncertain their future is and how they are lucky to survive throughout their duration in the camp. Then, Primo Levi is chosen one of the three to work as specialists in the Laboratory.

Inside this Laboratory, he is ensured with the survival of the cold winter and less suffering from hunger because he was not subject to physical labor. He describes how he remembers many objects and is happy to see familiar sites of when he was a free man. He states how the condition he is currently in is better than those who work in the cold how he received a book to refresh his analytical skills.

Despite the ‘good’ conditions that he received inside the labs, outside, nothing had changed. Primo Levi, by being chosen for the Laboratory was able to experience a closer form of humanity because of the treatment that was different from the ‘outside’ but on the other hand, others were still fighting against death and were in constant fear of selections. This shows to me how there can be such a difference in condition despite that they are still in the same concentration camps.

Although Levi was in better situations, he was not all relieved of potential stress. One thing that had tormented him in the lab was the presence of women. He had noticed that in the camp, physical appearance had not mattered but inside the lab, the girls showed their disgust for the prisoners that worked inside the lab. He noticed how the ‘girls’ would not answer to the questions he had and how they would deliberately show their hatred towards them. Ironically, I thought that his type of stress was only caused on the outside of the barbed wires. In a sense, maybe Levi might have felt like a free man when he had to take sense of how he looked.

Mostly, I think this chapter should be considered a transition. From this chapter and on, I believe that Levi will go through changes that will benefit his survival in Auschwitz. As being selected for the Lab, also in the later chapters, I believe that Primo Levi will finally escape from ‘hell on earth’ and become a free man.