If This Is a Man

The prisoner who is executed in late 1944 in the next to last chapter is never named. Right before he is killed he addresses his fellow prisoners: “Comrades, I am the last one!” Levi explains that he was part of a large group of fellow prisoners assigned to the crematorium who worked together to bomb it; he is the last to be killed. At the time of the execution Levi and his best friend, Alberto, are being supported by Lorenzo, who is smuggling extra food rations to them daily. Levi and Alberto are walking and talking, carrying soup from Lorenzo back to their hut when they realize that an execution is about to occur.

Levi witnesses The Last One’s resistance at the moment of his death, yet he, like all the other prisoners who are forced to watch the execution, does nothing to acknowledge the courage of The Last One, remaining docile and following all commands during the execution.

Levi also describes the resistance of the hundreds of prisoners with whom The Last One collaborated. Levi is in awe and also ashamed that he has not acted as courageously. The existence of the Last One and his fellow resisters challenges Levi’s earlier categorization of existence in the camps: saved and drowned. Though The Last One and his fellow prisoners are killed by the Nazis and thus are not “saved,” their deaths are not a result of becoming indifferent or “drowned.” Levi comes face to face with a courage that challenges his own way of being and earlier understanding of what is possible.

Null Achtzehn (Zero 18) is a young prisoner who is only ever referred to by the last three digits of his intake number, 018, “as if everyone was aware that only man was worthy of a name, and that Null Achtzehn is no longer a man” (42). Null Achtzehn is not physically destroyed as many “drowned” prisoners are. Instead, what marks him as drowned is his indifference to his own pain and suffering, as well as his survival. He does not search for extra food, necessary to survive, and does not bother to avoid being beaten. Most dangerous to those who are paired with him during work is that he does not avoid exhaustion. He works more than any of the other prisoners, who are constantly trying to find ways to avoid work. He also works until he cannot, collapsing with no warning at all, putting his work partners in jeopardy for serious injury, especially when carrying loads together. Levi himself sustains an injury to his foot as a result of Null Achtzehn’s indifference.

Lorenzo is a civilian who provides Levi with food, expecting nothing in return. The specifics of how Levi meets Lorenzo and how Lorenzo comes to support him are not provided, but the concrete terms of their relationship are simple. Lorenzo brings him food, a vest, and helps Levi send a postcard and delivers the response to Levi.

Though the aid that Lorenzo offers is easy to describe, the relationship in the context of the Lager is not, as it is “the story of a time and condition now effaced from every present reality,” a relation that can only be understood as “legends” or events of “remotest history” are understood (139).

Levi attributes his survival to Lorenzo. He insists that Lorenzo saves his life not through his material aid, though this is crucial, but through his existence as a good person. Lorenzo expects nothing in return for his help, and his presence constantly reminds Levi that there exists goodness in the world, and this goodness is something “for which it was worth surviving” (142).

Levi presents Lorenzo in opposition to everyone involved, whether victim or oppressor, with the Lager, from the “evil and insane SS men” down to the “indifferent slave Haftlinge,” all of whom “fraternize in a uniform internal desolation (142). Lorenzo “was a man,” and his presence as a man enables Levi “not to forget that I myself was a man” (142).

Lorenzo’s manhood, however, is not merely the opposite of the non-man, Null Achtzehn. A non-man does not care about his survival, as opposed to the saved, who do. Instead, Lorenzo cares about others’ survival and acts on this, with manhood here defined as altruistic concern and action for others.

The Schutzstaffel (SS) was a paramilitary organization under Hitler’s Nazi Party, exercising its power throughout occupied Europe during WWII. The SS had various groups within it, including the Allgemeine SS (General SS), which enforced the Nazi’s racial policies, and the Waffen-SS (Armed SS), which was the general combat unit. The SS-Totenkopfverbande (SS-TV) was directly responsible for managing the concentration camps. The Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst (SD) organizations handled surveillance, detecting any opponents of Nazism, foreign and domestic, and policing the German people.

When Levi refers to the SS, he is referring specifically to the SS-TV, who are in charge of the camps. The SS-TV was directly responsible for the murders of six million Jews as well as Polish and German civilians, prisoners of war, Roma, and many other groups. They were directly responsible, too, for the enslavement of prisoners in work camps.