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I too entered the Lager as a nonbeliever, and as a nonbeliever I was liberated and have lived to this day.

Primo Levi

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Primo Levi
Age: 67 †
Born: 1919
Born: July 31
Died: 1987
Died: April 11
Author
Autobiographer
Chemist
Novelist
Philosopher
Poet
Politician
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Turin
Italy
Lager
Liberated
Entered
Lived
Nonbeliever

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The sea's only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong.
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Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often loses himself.
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To destroy a man is difficult, almost as difficult as to create one: it has not been easy, nor quick, but you Germans have succeeded. Here we are, docile under your gaze from our side you have nothing more to fear no acts of violence, no words of defiance, not even a look of judgment.
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We collected in a group in front of their door, and we experienced within ourselves a grief that was new for us, the ancient grief of the people that has no land, the grief without hope of the exodus which is renewed in every century.
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To give a name to a thing is as gratifying as giving a name to an island, but it is also dangerous: the danger consists in one's becoming convinced that all is taken care of and that once named, the phenomenon has also been explained.
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Dawn came on us like a betrayer it seemed as though the new sun rose as an ally of our enemies to assist in our destruction.
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Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.
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Perfection belongs to narrated events, not to those we live.
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The aims of life are the best defense against death.
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We will not return No one must leave here and so carry to the world, together with the sign impressed on his skin, the evil tidings of what man's presumption made of man in Auschwitz
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He could hardly read or write but his heart spoke the language of the good
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I live in my house as I live inside my skin: I know more beautiful, more ample, more sturdy and more picturesque skins: but it would seem to me unnatural to exchange them for mine.
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The work of bestial degradation, begun by the victorious Germans, had been carried to its conclusion by the Germans in defeat.
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We must be listened to: above and beyond our personal experience, we have collectively witnessed a fundamental unexpected event, fundamental precisely because unexpected, not foreseen by anyone. It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.
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Each of us bears the imprint of a friend met along the way In each the trace of each.
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I am constantly amazed by man's inhumanity to man.
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The living are more demanding the dead can wait.
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It is the duty of righteous men to make war on all undeserved privilege, but one must not forget that this is a war without end.
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It is this refrain that we hear repeated by everyone: you are not at home, this is not a sanatorium, the only exit is by way of the Chimney. (What did it mean? Soon we were all to learn what it meant.)
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Perhaps Kafka laughed when he told stories [. . . ] because one isn't always equal to oneself.
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