Sunday, March 11, 2007

Endless persistence until death

Chapter 15: Die drei Leute vom Labor
The description of the Germans by Primo Levi caught my attention, as he said the Russians are coming and that the end of the war is near. Levi says, “They are Germans. This way of behavior is not meditated and deliberate, but follows from their nature and from the destiny they have chosen. They could not act differently: if you wound the body of a dying man, the wound will begin to heal, even if the whole body dies within a day.”
This last phrase gave me a moment of realization. True, Germans do what they do not only because they are ordered to do so, but because it is their nature, at least according to Primo Levi. But does this only apply to Germans? In my opinion it applies to everyone, including the prisoners in the concentration camps as well as people of today. The prisoners, while being deprived of almost everything they could be happy about, they still have a small amount of hope (mentioned in Chapter 13), almost unrecognizable, that keeps many of them surviving through times of difficulty. They continue their struggle to live despite the discouragements given by the harsh environment, right until the moment they die. Similarly, we keep our hopes up even in disadvantageous situations. For example, in a sports game, even if our team is losing with a large score margin with the other team, we still hope that our team will win until the moment we lose.
The metaphor given by Levi that compares the Germans with a human body was very accurate and catching. I found it very truthful to Germans and every living being in the world, including plants, insects, and animals. It reminded me that one will continue to persist, whether consciously or unconsciously, even in hopeless situations.

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