Moments of Reprieve     by Primo Levi, Translated by Ruth Feldman Original title: Lilit e altri racconti (mostly) Original language: Italian Published by Viking Penguin Pub. Date: 1995 Format: Paperback, 128 pages Dimensions: (in inches): 0.41 x 7.73 x 5.06 ISBN: 0140188959 List Price: $11.95 Buy online from Amazon.com for $9.56 Published by Abacus Pub. Date: 1987 Pub. Place: UK Format: Paperback, 176 pages List Price: £5.99 Not available for ordering

Click on image to see enlargement

Like the Drowned and the Saved and If This is a Man this is one of the series of books Primo Levi wrote about his and others’ experience of the German death camps. Levi strove, as all men and women with any social awareness must, to draw lessons for the future from this descent into scientific cruelty and morbid nihilism. In this particular book he chose to pick out stories he had witnessed or that were recounted to him of individuals who escaped, for a moment or for a lifetime, the grisly extermination machine of the Nazis. Levi himself called these escapes ‘breaches...in the black universe’ and it is the unprecedented background of the camps that makes the lives and events he describes so shining.


There is the glitter of the Lillith story told amongst desperate men (Lillith), a vision of the Hitler Youth being shown around the camp in late 1944 to see ‘the enemy, the submen who were destroying Germany’ (Last Christmas of the War) and the poignant story of Rappoport with his strange balance sheet of pleasure and pain (Rappoport’s Testament).- Moments of Reprieve joins those other books by Jewish writers like Bassani and S.Y.Agnon touched by the Holocaust as a statement about the unspeakable and the unthinkable. That horrified silence is, today, a part of the barrier the Nazis built around their deeds, like the wire fences of their camps, a barrier that still needs to be torn down — which makes these writers’ elliptical method of suggesting something by never quite mentioning it an effective and humane way to proceed.

‘It often happens these days that you hear people say they’re ashamed of being Italian. In fact we have good reasons too be ashamed: first and foremost, of not having been able to produce a political class that represents us and, on the contrary, tolerating for thirty years one that does not. On the other hand, we have virtues of which we are unaware, and we do not realize how rare they are in Europe and in the world.’ p117

Like the Drowned and the Saved and If This is a Man this is one of the series of books Primo Levi wrote about his and others’ experience of the German death camps. Levi strove, as all men and women with any social awareness must, to draw lessons for the future from this descent into scientific cruelty and morbid nihilism. In this particular book he chose to pick out stories he had witnessed or that were recounted to him of individuals who escaped, for a moment or for a lifetime, the Nazi extermination machine. Levi himself called these escapes ’breaches... in the black universe’ and it is the unprecedented background of the camps that makes the lives and events he describes so shining.

There is the glitter of the ancient Lillith story told amongst desperate men (Lillith), a vision of the Hitler Youth being shown around the camp in late 1944 to see ’the enemy, the submen who were destroying Germany’ (Last Christmas of the War) and the poignant story of Rappoport with his strange balance sheet of pleasure and pain (Rappoport’s Testament).

Moments of Reprieve is a statement about the unspeakable and the unthinkable. However, horrified silence is a part of the barrier the Nazis built around their deeds, like the wire fences of the camps, but it is a barrier that still needs to be torn down and this makes Levi’s subtle and thoughtful work of primary importance.

’A short time before,... we’d had the opportunity to observe close-up a singular school of fanaticism, a typical example of Nazi training. On some unused land next to our Camp, a Hitlerjugend — Hitler Youth — encampment had been set up. There were possibly two hundred adolescents, still almost children. In the morning they practised flag-raising, sang belligerent hymns, and armed with ancient muskets, were put through marching and shooting drills... But sometimes in the afternoons their instructors, who were SS veterans, would bring them to see us as we worked clearing away rubble from the bombings... They led them among us on a "guided tour" and lectured them in loud voices... "These that you see are the enemies of the Reich your enemies. Take a good look at them: would you call them men? They are Untermenschen, submen! They stink because they don’t wash; they’re in rags because they don’t take care of themselves. What’s more, many of them don’t even understand German. They are subversives, bandits, street thieves from the four corners of Europe, but we have rendered them harmless; now they work for us, but they are good only for the most primitive work. Moreover, it is only right that they should repair the war damages; these are the people who wanted the war: the Jews, the Communists, and the agents of the plutocracies."... The child-soldiers listened, devout and dazed. Seen close up, they inspired both pain and horror. They were haggard and frightened, yet they looked at us with intense hatred. So we were the ones guilty for all the evils, the cities in ruins, the famine, their dead fathers on the Russian front. The Führer was stern but just, and it was just to serve him.’ (p88-9 Last Christmas of the War)