Evidence of Memory
Levi is concerned with the issue of Holocaust denial, and feels that this is especially threatening because the Germans destroyed all of the physical evidence of their systematic murder of the prisoners in the camp. They kept detailed written catalogues of death in terms of numbers, but the actual methods of torture that they used are largely confined to the memories of prisoners. Even though these memories are often conflicting and sometimes subjective, they are still important as eyewitness testimony and have to be listened to often to make sure that the events that happened are acknowledged and taught.
The Survivor's Guilt
Levi writes that many of the survivors of the Holocaust were plagued with survivor's guilt after the camps were liberated. They felt that they were living in someone else's place, because for many survival and death were random. They were living whilst another man was dead, but most felt it could so easily have been the other way around. Many survivors felt so much guilt that they were unable to enjoy their freedom and the fact that they had made it out of the camps alive, and instead committed suicide, unable to deal with their emotions.
Deliberate Violence
Levi tells of the deliberate way in which camps were devised to torture and cause as much pain and suffering as possible to prisoners. They were not designed to kill swiftly; the prisoners were not gathered into one spot to make mass murder more efficient, but they were gathered into the camps so that as much harm as possible could be slowly and methodically inflicted. In this way, Levi sees a difference in degrees of violence, and also in the type of violence that a person or group may choose to use.
