A concentration camp survivor confronts one of the most heated and vexed questions of the Holocaust: what price survival? In 1943; sixteen-year-old Paul Steinberg was arrested in Paris and deported to Auschwitz. A chemistry student; Steinberg was assigned to work in the camp's laboratory alongside Primo Levi; who would later immortalize his fellow inmate as "Henri;" the ultimate survivor; the paradigm of the prisoner who clung to life at the cost of his own humanity. "One seems to glimpse a human soul;" Levi wrote in If This Is a Man; "but then Henri's sad smile freezes in a cold grimace; and here he is again; intent on his hunt and his struggle; hard and distant; enclosed in armor; the enemy of all."Now; after fifty years; Steinberg speaks for himself. In an unsparing act of self-scrutiny; he traces his passage from artless adolescent to ruthless creature determined to do anything to live. He describes his strategies of survival: the boxing matches he staged for the camp commanders; the English POWs he exploited; the maneuvers and tactics he applied with cold competence. Ultimately; he confirms Levi's judgment: "No doubt he saw straight. I probably was that creature; prepared to use whatever means I had available." But; he asks; "Is it so wrong to survive?"Brave and rare; Speak You Also is a profound and necessary addition to the body of Holocaust writing: a survivor's reckoning with culpability and survival.
#427096 in Books 2004-10-15 2004-09-23Ingredients: Example IngredientsOriginal language:EnglishPDF # 1 10.08 x 1.35 x 6.00l; #File Name: 0312308655432 pages
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