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a Polish prisoner. Later, he was beaten quite badly because of it, but
that was part of his moral code, the "Zuruckschlagen,"
to
render a
blow for a blow . I've hinted that Amery probably sentenced himself
to death with his "Zuruckschlagen" because he was an extremely
polemical man. He was polemical with everyone, including me. I
didn't mention this in
I sommersi e i salvati,
but some of the letters he
wrote to a mutual friend of ours were harshly critical of my stand vis–
a-vis the Germans. He considered me a "forgiver," a "Verzeihende."
He wrote a letter saying, "I don't agree with Primo Levi, who tends
to forgive everyone a little." That isn't true.
RS:
However, in
I sommersi e i salvati
you said that on an individual
level, you might even be able to forgive.
PL:
I'm not exactly sure. Since I'm not a believer, I don't really know
what forgiveness is. It's a concept that's outside my world. I don't
have the authority to bestow forgiveness.
If
I were a rabbi, maybe I
would; if! were ajudge, perhaps. I believe that if someone has com–
mitted a crime, he has to pay. It's not up to me to say, "I exempt you
from punishment." The authority does not rest with me.
RS:
Do you say so out of anger?
PL:
I don't think so, because even when incidents don't involve me
directly, like the Italian terrorists, for example, or even with the
repented terrorists, I can't bring myself to forgive them. If they com–
mitted a crime, then they have to pay because justice doesn't exist if
there's no payment. In
I sommersi e
i
salvati,
I mentioned the story of
the onion - do you remember Dostoevsky's story of the onion? In
The Brothers Karamazov,
Grusenka tells the story of a hateful old crone
who, once in her life, gave a little onion to a beggar. After she dies
and goes to Hell, an angel comes down and reaches out to her with a
little onion in his hand. She hangs on to it and is thus delivered from
Hell. That's a very poetic story, but indefensible. One little onion is
not enough. Hoss, the commandant of Auschwitz: think of how
many little onions he gave away - to his wife, his children, his dog,
his horse! He was full of little onions!
RS:
When you talk about this need you had, this need to bear
witness, you say that the inmates in the Lager who were in a position
to have information - the poli tical prisoners - wrote their memoirs
as an act of war.
PL:
Yes, some certainly did. One of them, Langbein, is a dear
friend of mine, a person I highly respect.
9
At that time, he was a
9 . See Hermann Langbein,
Die Starkeren: ein Bericht aus Auschwitz und anderen
(Bund–
Verlag: Koln, 1982).
I
