Primo Levi refers to the experience in the Lager as the new bible for one reason, and one reason only. Levi’s experience during the Holocaust bears a striking resemblance to the story of Moses in the bible, both of which emotionally illustrate the harshness of human suffering, and the will to survive. In Moses’ time his people, the Hebrews, were persecuted in a way such that each first born child was sentenced to death. As in Moses’ case, Levi and most European Jews of that time were persecuted against, mostly through concentration camps and lagers. In these Lagers, a type of prison camp, guarded by German SS officers, if you were ‘fortunate’ enough to stay alive
through the selection processes, you were condemned to a living death sentence of work, exhaustion, and starvation. Both circumstances taking place in their respective times in history, both with fascist leaders or dictators with warped senses of reality. In the case of Moses, the King of Egypt played the role; in Levi’s case, Hitler, both evil and demented men in their own right. Yet in both cases a tragic theme is evident, overwhelming proof of extreme human suffering, and the ability of human will.
Primo Levi was an Italian Jew who was eventually captured
. . .
One day when Moses, the boy, became of age he saw an Egyptian guard strike one of his own people. Levi survived this horrifying period in his life, in total he spent 10 months in this camp, lucky, some would say. This act was in no way more preferable to these tortured souls; the men were placed into gas chambers dozens at a time and gassed to death. To the emotional highs experienced with Levi, and the struggle and ability to survive and with Moses in the exodus of his people from a land of terror in Egypt. by the 3rd Reich, the German army, at the age of 23. These motifs can be seen oozing from each of these two stories. They were over-worked, physically and mentally abused, and starved. Moses angered at this barbaric enslavement of his native people was outraged; he killed the guard and hid his body in the sand. Once word of this got the Pharaoh, Moses had to run from the kingdom, to save his own life. He was hidden there by his mother for his protection, reason being the first born son of any Israelite was to be put to death, by order of the King of Egypt, a decree to protect his thrown. The extreme lows of the inhumane treatment of the Jews and the Hebrews, and physical and mental abuse that goes along with that. His will to survive and love for humanity overcame the intense suffering of his people, and freed them from the insanity.
In the book of exodus a similar situation is depicted, Moses the infant son of a Hebrew woman was hid in a basket, along the reeds of the Nile. In these Lagers terrible terrible things took place, the attempted eradication of the Jewish peoples in order to provide Europe with a supreme race.
Approximate Word count =
866
Approximate Pages =
3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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