The Gray Zone by Primo Levi

Levi describes the lagers as a terrible place for the newcomers. People could not be simply divided into victims and persecutors. People who read about it tend to try and separate evil from the good. People who entered it found it not only terrible but also un-understandable. The concept of the concentration camps right from the time of the Nazis was to shatter the capacity to resist. Newcomers were tortured by punches and kicks, and everyone was hostile towards him. The word “Zugang” was used for newcomers, the word means “access” in German. The first days were the hardest for the newcomers. The privileged prisoners were a minority, they were the ones who survived and did not die of hunger. Levi tells the story of an Italian newcomer who was drowned in the soup tub. Where few have power, privilege necessarily arises. The place where the two camps of masters and slaves converge and diverge is called the gray zone by Levi. According to Levi, the gray zone of protekcja and collaboration springs from multiple roots. The motives of guilt, torture, terror and desire of power have come into play to create this gray zone.

The fault mostly lies with the system, the totalitarian government. The lower level workers were not the most to blame, however the case is in different for the people in the more commanding positions like the chiefs, the barrack chiefs and the clerks. They obtained secret information from the prisoners. The people in charge were punished for not being harsh enough but they did not have a upper limit, they could go to any extent. The lager was like a totalitarian state on a smaller scale. However, a complete totalitarian state has never existed. The role of the Kapo was offered to political prisoners and sadists. There are gray ambiguous people who are ready to compromise. Many of these people did doubt whether what they were doing was right. The secret squad was given privileges in form of extra food but it came at the cost of extra diligence. Initially the SS came from the prisoners in the lager, they used to handle the newcomers. Mostly the members of the secret squad were Jews and they were the ones torturing other Jews. They were kept distanced from other prisoners and the outside world. However, some information always filters through.

The organization of these squads was a demonic crime because the victims were burdened by guilt and they lost their sense of innocence. The secret squad was severely hostile to the new comers but not so much to the veterans of the squad. Levi tells of an interesting event where in one of the gas chambers the squad finds a woman who is alive and they take care of her. It shows how brutality and compassion can co-exist. However, one of the SS men called Muhsfeld later decides that she must die because she is too young to be trusted but he does not do the job himself. In 1947, Musfeld was sentenced to death. It is much harder to judge the special squad because you wonder why they accepted the task and did not prefer death instead.