WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.439 Okay, I want to start today with a bit of a showdown, 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:05.919 a literary heavyweight fight, if you will. But 00:00:05.919 --> 00:00:07.759 it happened in a place you might not expect. 00:00:08.080 --> 00:00:12.300 A showdown? I'm intrigued. Who's fighting? Where 00:00:12.300 --> 00:00:15.500 are we? Picture this. It's 2006. We are at the 00:00:15.500 --> 00:00:18.899 Royal Institution in London. And, you know, for 00:00:18.899 --> 00:00:20.980 context, this is Hallowood Ground for Science. 00:00:21.140 --> 00:00:23.280 This is where Faraday did his lectures. Right. 00:00:23.359 --> 00:00:25.640 This is the heart of the British scientific establishment. 00:00:25.640 --> 00:00:28.359 Exactly. And they decide to settle this massive 00:00:28.359 --> 00:00:31.399 debate. What is the single best science book 00:00:31.399 --> 00:00:34.700 ever written? The best science book ever. That 00:00:34.700 --> 00:00:37.640 is a... That's an incredibly heavy title to hand 00:00:37.640 --> 00:00:39.359 out. You're talking about a canon that goes back 00:00:39.359 --> 00:00:41.899 centuries. Right. And look at the contenders 00:00:41.899 --> 00:00:44.020 in the ring. You had the absolute heavy hitters. 00:00:44.079 --> 00:00:46.340 You've got Charles Darwin with The Origin of 00:00:46.340 --> 00:00:48.799 Species, which basically redefined how we see 00:00:48.799 --> 00:00:51.179 life on Earth. The foundational text of modern 00:00:51.179 --> 00:00:53.640 biology. You've got Watson describing the double 00:00:53.640 --> 00:00:56.179 helix. You have the foundational texts of physics. 00:00:56.340 --> 00:00:58.920 All the big names are there. And the winner. 00:00:59.530 --> 00:01:01.969 The book that beat Darwin. I think I see where 00:01:01.969 --> 00:01:03.869 you're going with this one. It wasn't a biology 00:01:03.869 --> 00:01:06.530 textbook. It wasn't a treatise on quantum physics. 00:01:06.709 --> 00:01:09.250 It was a collection of autobiographical stories 00:01:09.250 --> 00:01:12.689 by an Italian paint factory manager named Primo 00:01:12.689 --> 00:01:15.650 Levi. The periodic table. Exactly. The periodic 00:01:15.650 --> 00:01:18.049 table. And that right there is the hook, isn't 00:01:18.049 --> 00:01:20.489 it? Because when most people hear the name Primo 00:01:20.489 --> 00:01:22.909 Levi, they don't think science writer. No, not 00:01:22.909 --> 00:01:25.719 at all. They think Holocaust survivor. they think 00:01:25.719 --> 00:01:28.379 of the witness and that is the tragedy and the 00:01:28.379 --> 00:01:30.959 triumph of levi's life all wrapped up in one 00:01:30.959 --> 00:01:33.819 single knot he is without a doubt one of the 00:01:33.819 --> 00:01:36.799 most lucid profound witnesses to the holocaust 00:01:37.209 --> 00:01:40.230 But the reason his testimony is so unique, the 00:01:40.230 --> 00:01:42.450 reason it cuts so much deeper than almost anyone 00:01:42.450 --> 00:01:45.129 else's, is precisely because he was a scientist. 00:01:45.469 --> 00:01:47.670 That's the premise we are unpacking today. We 00:01:47.670 --> 00:01:49.709 aren't just looking at a survivor memoir. We 00:01:49.709 --> 00:01:51.489 are looking at a chemist who was dropped into 00:01:51.489 --> 00:01:53.849 the ultimate laboratory of hell Auschwitz and 00:01:53.849 --> 00:01:56.010 managed to survive and then, you know, analyze 00:01:56.010 --> 00:01:58.230 it. Yes, analyze it. That's the key. He didn't 00:01:58.230 --> 00:02:00.310 use mysticism. He didn't use political rage. 00:02:00.569 --> 00:02:03.450 He used the cool observational eye of a man used 00:02:03.450 --> 00:02:06.150 to study molecular structures. It's a fascinating 00:02:06.150 --> 00:02:08.949 lens. He treated the concentration camp like 00:02:08.949 --> 00:02:12.289 a massive, terrifying experiment. He observed 00:02:12.289 --> 00:02:14.710 the properties of the elements around him, the 00:02:14.710 --> 00:02:17.050 victims, the oppressors, the hunger, the cold, 00:02:17.250 --> 00:02:19.849 just as he would observe a reaction in a beaker. 00:02:20.030 --> 00:02:22.210 And so that's our mission for this deep dive, 00:02:22.349 --> 00:02:25.629 to understand how a rational mind processes irrational 00:02:25.629 --> 00:02:29.479 evil. Exactly. We're going to map out his life 00:02:29.479 --> 00:02:32.659 from his early days in Turin, how chemistry became 00:02:32.659 --> 00:02:35.379 his anchor against fascism, to his 11 months 00:02:35.379 --> 00:02:37.639 in Auschwitz. We need to look at the specific, 00:02:37.759 --> 00:02:39.879 tangible factors that allowed him to survive. 00:02:40.159 --> 00:02:41.819 When almost everyone else from his transport 00:02:41.819 --> 00:02:44.479 didn't. Right. Then there's his literary career, 00:02:44.699 --> 00:02:46.960 how he balanced running a paint factory with 00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:49.680 becoming this world -renowned author. And finally, 00:02:49.740 --> 00:02:51.439 we have to get into his controversial death, 00:02:51.639 --> 00:02:54.280 the debate between suicide and accident, which, 00:02:54.419 --> 00:02:56.960 as we'll see, still divides historians and biographers. 00:02:57.289 --> 00:03:00.289 this day and we have a massive stack of source 00:03:00.289 --> 00:03:02.789 material to get through we're pulling from his 00:03:02.789 --> 00:03:05.469 biographies his memoirs like if this is a man 00:03:05.469 --> 00:03:08.030 and the truce the history of the italian resistance 00:03:08.030 --> 00:03:10.729 and the philosophical debates he sparked later 00:03:10.729 --> 00:03:14.370 in life so let's start at the beginning before 00:03:14.370 --> 00:03:18.810 the camp before the war who was primo levi before 00:03:18.810 --> 00:03:23.409 the world broke Well, to understand Levi, you 00:03:23.409 --> 00:03:25.210 have to look at the geography of his life. It's 00:03:25.210 --> 00:03:27.830 actually quite unusual. He was born in 1919 in 00:03:27.830 --> 00:03:30.729 Turin, Italy. And specifically, he was born in 00:03:30.729 --> 00:03:33.629 an apartment at Corso Riamberto 75. And when 00:03:33.629 --> 00:03:36.370 you say he lived there, you mean he really lived 00:03:36.370 --> 00:03:37.750 there? I mean, he really lived there. He was 00:03:37.750 --> 00:03:39.789 born in that apartment in that very building. 00:03:40.069 --> 00:03:42.270 And aside from the year in Auschwitz and a brief 00:03:42.270 --> 00:03:44.610 period of work in Milan. He lived in that same 00:03:44.610 --> 00:03:46.909 apartment until the day he died. That's incredible. 00:03:47.110 --> 00:03:49.009 He was incredibly rooted. That's rare, especially 00:03:49.009 --> 00:03:52.110 for a 20th century European Jew. Usually that 00:03:52.110 --> 00:03:54.629 story involves displacement, exile, moving from 00:03:54.629 --> 00:03:56.949 country to country. But he was a Turin boy through 00:03:56.949 --> 00:03:59.550 and through. Completely. A creature of habit 00:03:59.550 --> 00:04:01.990 and a creature of that specific city. And as 00:04:01.990 --> 00:04:04.849 a child, the sources describe him as delicate. 00:04:05.650 --> 00:04:09.090 He was thin, shy, prone to chest infections. 00:04:09.189 --> 00:04:11.979 He considered himself... Ugly. So not an athlete. 00:04:12.159 --> 00:04:13.819 No, definitely not the captain of the football 00:04:13.819 --> 00:04:16.300 team. He was the kid in the corner reading books. 00:04:17.079 --> 00:04:20.079 Academically brilliant, but socially very withdrawn. 00:04:20.439 --> 00:04:22.680 Tell me about the family dynamic. What kind of 00:04:22.680 --> 00:04:26.089 house produces a primo Levi? It was a liberal 00:04:26.089 --> 00:04:29.610 Jewish household, but very, very Italian. His 00:04:29.610 --> 00:04:32.029 father, Cesar, was an interesting character. 00:04:32.290 --> 00:04:34.769 He was an autodidact, a self -taught man who 00:04:34.769 --> 00:04:37.290 worked for a manufacturing firm. He loved books, 00:04:37.470 --> 00:04:40.290 had a sharp wit, but was also a bit of a philanderer. 00:04:40.769 --> 00:04:43.170 Levi had a somewhat distant relationship with 00:04:43.170 --> 00:04:45.269 him. And his mother. His mother, Rina, was the 00:04:45.269 --> 00:04:47.569 steel in the family. She was highly educated, 00:04:47.810 --> 00:04:50.189 played the piano, spoke fluent French. She was 00:04:50.189 --> 00:04:51.910 the one who really ran the household. Now, I 00:04:51.910 --> 00:04:53.649 think it's important we clarify what Jewish meant 00:04:53.649 --> 00:04:55.720 to them. at this point in history, right? Because 00:04:55.720 --> 00:04:58.439 later on, his identity becomes this matter of 00:04:58.439 --> 00:05:01.519 life and death. But growing up, it was secondary, 00:05:01.779 --> 00:05:04.339 maybe even tertiary. They were Italians first. 00:05:04.660 --> 00:05:07.500 Levi was secular. He had a bar mitzvah, sure. 00:05:08.329 --> 00:05:10.810 But he later admitted he just memorized the Hebrew 00:05:10.810 --> 00:05:12.769 phonetically without really knowing what it meant. 00:05:12.910 --> 00:05:14.850 It was just a ritual you did. Exactly. It was 00:05:14.850 --> 00:05:17.730 a cultural thing. He was just a smart, shy Italian 00:05:17.730 --> 00:05:21.050 kid. In fact, like all Italian schoolboys in 00:05:21.050 --> 00:05:23.310 the 1930s, he was part of the avant -gardiste. 00:05:23.589 --> 00:05:26.110 The young fascists. The young fascists. It wasn't 00:05:26.110 --> 00:05:29.029 a choice. It was the law. You had to join. He 00:05:29.029 --> 00:05:31.069 wore the black shirt uniform. He even joined 00:05:31.069 --> 00:05:33.430 the ski division to avoid rifle drills because 00:05:33.430 --> 00:05:36.149 he hated the idea of marching. He wasn't political 00:05:36.149 --> 00:05:38.009 yet. He was just trying to get by. trying to 00:05:38.009 --> 00:05:40.189 blend in. But then in high school, he finds his 00:05:40.189 --> 00:05:42.990 thing, his anchor. He discovers his superpower, 00:05:43.389 --> 00:05:46.310 chemistry. Chemistry. He reads a book by Sir 00:05:46.310 --> 00:05:48.509 William Bragg called Concerning the Nature of 00:05:48.509 --> 00:05:50.889 Things. And something just clicks in his brain. 00:05:50.970 --> 00:05:52.769 You have to imagine the environment he's living 00:05:52.769 --> 00:05:56.529 in. Fascism is all about rhetoric, emotion, the 00:05:56.529 --> 00:05:58.730 glory of Rome, the spirit of the nation. It's 00:05:58.730 --> 00:06:01.089 all words. And a lot of it is just, you know, 00:06:01.129 --> 00:06:04.790 nonsense. It's fluid. It changes based on what 00:06:04.790 --> 00:06:06.649 the leader says today. It's not based in reality. 00:06:07.270 --> 00:06:09.689 Precisely. But chemistry. Chemistry is matter. 00:06:09.970 --> 00:06:12.470 He realizes that the world isn't just a messy, 00:06:12.529 --> 00:06:15.050 chaotic place of human emotions and fascist lies. 00:06:15.449 --> 00:06:19.149 It's made of atoms. It follows laws. If you mix 00:06:19.149 --> 00:06:21.649 an acid and a base, they react. They don't care 00:06:21.649 --> 00:06:23.870 if you're Jewish or Catholic or fascist. It's 00:06:23.870 --> 00:06:26.189 verifiable. That is the key word. Verifiable. 00:06:26.750 --> 00:06:29.410 Levi found a moral anchor in the periodic table. 00:06:29.689 --> 00:06:32.050 While the radio was pumping out propaganda lies 00:06:32.050 --> 00:06:34.949 about national destiny, he was in the lab finding 00:06:34.949 --> 00:06:37.959 truth. He later wrote that the periodic table 00:06:37.959 --> 00:06:40.800 was his Bible. It was the one place where things 00:06:40.800 --> 00:06:44.100 made sense. But then the lie comes for him. The 00:06:44.100 --> 00:06:46.540 irrational world crashes into his rational one. 00:06:46.740 --> 00:06:50.350 1938, the racial laws. The turning point. Up 00:06:50.350 --> 00:06:52.829 until 1938, Italy's fascism hadn't been explicitly 00:06:52.829 --> 00:06:54.829 anti -Semitic in the same way Germany's was. 00:06:54.970 --> 00:06:56.910 I mean, it wasn't good, but it wasn't genocidal. 00:06:56.949 --> 00:06:58.930 Jews held public office, right? There were generals, 00:06:59.009 --> 00:07:01.029 professors. Exactly. It was a very integrated 00:07:01.029 --> 00:07:04.629 community. Then Hitler's influence grows. Mussolini 00:07:04.629 --> 00:07:07.470 wants to align closer with Germany, and he issues 00:07:07.470 --> 00:07:11.459 the Manifesto of Race. And overnight. Levi's 00:07:11.459 --> 00:07:14.699 world just shrinks. Drastically. It was a civil 00:07:14.699 --> 00:07:17.180 death before the physical death came later. Jews 00:07:17.180 --> 00:07:19.839 lose their civil rights. Jewish books are banned. 00:07:20.120 --> 00:07:22.319 You can't publish in magazines. You can't own 00:07:22.319 --> 00:07:25.079 a radio in some cases. And critically for Levi, 00:07:25.300 --> 00:07:28.000 Jewish students are barred from entering university. 00:07:28.420 --> 00:07:30.259 But he was already in, wasn't he? There was a 00:07:30.259 --> 00:07:32.879 loophole. He had matriculated a year early because 00:07:32.879 --> 00:07:35.569 he was so bright. That loophole allowed him to 00:07:35.569 --> 00:07:38.149 stay and finish his degree, but it was a lonely 00:07:38.149 --> 00:07:40.430 existence. I can imagine. He's in the chemistry 00:07:40.430 --> 00:07:43.050 labs, but the atmosphere has changed. People 00:07:43.050 --> 00:07:45.649 are distant. Former friends literally cross the 00:07:45.649 --> 00:07:48.490 street to avoid him. He struggles to find a professor 00:07:48.490 --> 00:07:50.790 willing to be his thesis advisor because, while 00:07:50.790 --> 00:07:53.129 he's Jewish, it's politically sensitive to help 00:07:53.129 --> 00:07:55.410 him now. But he does find one. A physics professor, 00:07:55.649 --> 00:07:57.870 actually. And he graduates. He graduates with 00:07:57.870 --> 00:08:01.720 full marks. Summa cum laude. But there's a sting 00:08:01.720 --> 00:08:05.199 in the tail, a final bureaucratic cruelty. His 00:08:05.199 --> 00:08:07.959 degree certificate has a stamp on it. What does 00:08:07.959 --> 00:08:10.639 it say? Of Jewish race. It was a mark of shame, 00:08:10.639 --> 00:08:12.720 but it was also a professional death sentence. 00:08:13.180 --> 00:08:15.579 The laws meant he couldn't be hired by state 00:08:15.579 --> 00:08:18.259 institutions or major Aryan companies. So here 00:08:18.259 --> 00:08:21.420 is this brilliant young chemist, 1941, degree 00:08:21.420 --> 00:08:24.079 in hand, top of his class, and he is legally 00:08:24.079 --> 00:08:26.379 unemployable. So what does he do? He can't just 00:08:26.379 --> 00:08:28.579 sit at Corso Riomberto and wait for the world 00:08:28.579 --> 00:08:31.579 to end. He goes underground, professionally speaking, 00:08:31.860 --> 00:08:34.840 and this leads to one of the most ironic chapters 00:08:34.840 --> 00:08:37.480 of his life. He takes a clandestine job at an 00:08:37.480 --> 00:08:40.940 asbestos mine in San Vittore. A mine? Yeah. He 00:08:40.940 --> 00:08:43.039 has to work under a false name because he's not 00:08:43.039 --> 00:08:45.220 legally allowed to be there. A chemist and a 00:08:45.220 --> 00:08:47.909 mine. What was he doing exactly? They were trying 00:08:47.909 --> 00:08:50.330 to extract nickel from the mine, spoil the waste 00:08:50.330 --> 00:08:52.610 rock. It was a complex chemical puzzle. How do 00:08:52.610 --> 00:08:54.909 you get this tiny amount of valuable metal out 00:08:54.909 --> 00:08:57.690 of this mountain of trash? And Levi loved the 00:08:57.690 --> 00:09:00.389 challenge. It was pure problem solving. But here 00:09:00.389 --> 00:09:03.389 is the massive irony. Yeah. Later, he realizes 00:09:03.389 --> 00:09:06.289 why the mine wanted that nickel so badly. He 00:09:06.289 --> 00:09:08.990 did. Nickel is essential for making armor plating 00:09:08.990 --> 00:09:12.009 and armaments. So he was secretly, unknowingly 00:09:12.009 --> 00:09:14.549 producing material to help the German war effort. 00:09:14.730 --> 00:09:18.000 Wow. The complexity of that. He's a Jewish man 00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:20.399 hiding from the fascists, working under a fake 00:09:20.399 --> 00:09:22.759 name while helping them build tanks. It highlights 00:09:22.759 --> 00:09:24.659 the gray zone we will talk about later. You are 00:09:24.659 --> 00:09:26.840 never fully outside the system, even when you 00:09:26.840 --> 00:09:29.620 think you are. After the mine, he moves to Milan 00:09:29.620 --> 00:09:33.580 to work for a Swiss firm, Wander AG. They were 00:09:33.580 --> 00:09:36.500 trying to extract an anti -diabetic agent from 00:09:36.500 --> 00:09:38.860 vegetable matter. Okay, that sounds a bit more 00:09:38.860 --> 00:09:42.000 humanitarian than tank armor. In theory. But 00:09:42.000 --> 00:09:44.820 the project was a total failure. Scientifically, 00:09:44.980 --> 00:09:47.720 it was impossible. Levi realized pretty quickly 00:09:47.720 --> 00:09:50.419 that the chemistry didn't work. But he also realized 00:09:50.419 --> 00:09:52.620 that nobody at the company wanted to admit it. 00:09:52.679 --> 00:09:54.620 Why not? Because as long as the project continued, 00:09:54.779 --> 00:09:56.980 they all had jobs, and more importantly, they 00:09:56.980 --> 00:09:58.820 didn't have to go to the front lines. It was 00:09:58.820 --> 00:10:01.360 a futile project that kept him safe. He spent 00:10:01.360 --> 00:10:03.620 his time in the lab reading philosophy and writing 00:10:03.620 --> 00:10:06.159 poetry in the margins of his lab notes. So he's 00:10:06.159 --> 00:10:09.159 living this double life, chemist by day, non 00:10:09.159 --> 00:10:13.690 -person by law. But then 1943 hits, Mussolini 00:10:13.690 --> 00:10:17.070 falls, the Germans invade Norzern, Italy, and 00:10:17.070 --> 00:10:19.289 Levi decides he can't just hide in a lab anymore. 00:10:19.649 --> 00:10:22.929 This is the moment the delicate, shy intellectual 00:10:22.929 --> 00:10:27.070 decides to pick up a gun. He moves into the hills 00:10:27.070 --> 00:10:29.230 of the Aosta Valley with his mother and sister 00:10:29.230 --> 00:10:31.990 to hide. He meets up with other dissidents and 00:10:31.990 --> 00:10:34.350 joins a partisan group. The group was called 00:10:34.350 --> 00:10:37.669 Justice and Liberty. I have to pause here. Primo 00:10:37.669 --> 00:10:39.909 Levi. The guy who considered himself physically 00:10:39.909 --> 00:10:43.529 weak, the bookworm who skipped rifle drills to 00:10:43.529 --> 00:10:46.330 go skiing, is now a guerrilla fighter in the 00:10:46.330 --> 00:10:49.700 Alps. Fighter might be a generous term. Levi 00:10:49.700 --> 00:10:51.879 himself admitted later that they were the most 00:10:51.879 --> 00:10:54.399 disarmed partisans in Piedmont. They had no idea 00:10:54.399 --> 00:10:56.159 what they were doing. None. They were totally 00:10:56.159 --> 00:10:59.620 untrained. They were a ragtag group of intellectuals, 00:10:59.620 --> 00:11:02.340 students, and refugees. They had one pistol between 00:11:02.340 --> 00:11:04.759 them that didn't work properly. They were playing 00:11:04.759 --> 00:11:07.539 at soldiers. And the reality caught up with them 00:11:07.539 --> 00:11:09.879 very, very fast. It didn't last long. Not at 00:11:09.879 --> 00:11:13.620 all. December 1943. The fascist militia Italians, 00:11:13.980 --> 00:11:15.720 loyal to the puppet government set up by the 00:11:15.720 --> 00:11:18.440 Nazis, they raid their hideout. Levi is captured. 00:11:18.659 --> 00:11:20.740 And this brings us to a terrifying calculation. 00:11:21.139 --> 00:11:23.279 A moment of game theory where the stakes are 00:11:23.279 --> 00:11:25.379 his life. Walk us through the choice he had to 00:11:25.379 --> 00:11:28.179 make. This is a critical moment. He's being interrogated. 00:11:28.220 --> 00:11:31.740 He has two secrets. One, he is a partisan. Two, 00:11:32.100 --> 00:11:35.220 he is a Jew. The interrogator asks who he is. 00:11:35.610 --> 00:11:38.549 Levi processes the logic in a split second. If 00:11:38.549 --> 00:11:41.309 he confesses to being a partisan, that is a political 00:11:41.309 --> 00:11:43.809 crime. Partisans are being shot against the wall 00:11:43.809 --> 00:11:47.309 immediately as traitors. Okay, so confessing 00:11:47.309 --> 00:11:50.009 to being a partisan equals immediate execution. 00:11:50.429 --> 00:11:55.269 Right. But if he confesses to being a Jew, well, 00:11:55.350 --> 00:11:59.009 in Italy in late 1943, the final solution wasn't 00:11:59.009 --> 00:12:00.769 fully understood yet by the general population. 00:12:01.269 --> 00:12:03.929 The Italians knew Jews were being sent to internment 00:12:03.929 --> 00:12:06.330 camps. Yes, like... Fossily. Which was just a 00:12:06.330 --> 00:12:08.129 holding camp near Medina. Right. There were no 00:12:08.129 --> 00:12:10.210 gas chambers there. It was bad, but it wasn't 00:12:10.210 --> 00:12:12.169 Auschwitz. So in that moment, it seemed like 00:12:12.169 --> 00:12:14.730 the safer option. So he gambles. He says, I am 00:12:14.730 --> 00:12:17.110 a Jew. He chooses the identity he thought would 00:12:17.110 --> 00:12:19.950 save his life. He is sent to Fossily. And for 00:12:19.950 --> 00:12:22.289 a brief moment, he was right. Fossily wasn't 00:12:22.289 --> 00:12:24.490 terrible. They could receive mail. They had food. 00:12:24.590 --> 00:12:26.970 Families were kept together. But he had made 00:12:26.970 --> 00:12:28.710 a miscalculation about the timeline. Because 00:12:28.710 --> 00:12:31.330 the Germans were taking over everything. Exactly. 00:12:31.490 --> 00:12:33.830 The Germans took direct control of the Italian 00:12:33.830 --> 00:12:36.850 camp system. And in February 1944, the order 00:12:36.850 --> 00:12:39.909 came down. The camp was to be emptied. Levi and 00:12:39.909 --> 00:12:41.730 all the other Jewish prisoners were put on a 00:12:41.730 --> 00:12:44.169 transport. This is the number that always staggers 00:12:44.169 --> 00:12:46.870 me, the transport statistics. It really brings 00:12:46.870 --> 00:12:49.690 home the scale of the loss. It is brutal math. 00:12:49.929 --> 00:12:53.570 There were 650 Italian Jews on that train, 12 00:12:53.570 --> 00:12:56.649 cattle trucks crammed in like livestock, no water, 00:12:56.769 --> 00:13:00.830 barely any air. The Johnny took days. Unimaginable. 00:13:01.179 --> 00:13:03.139 When that train arrived at its destination, the 00:13:03.139 --> 00:13:05.919 SS did their selection on the platform. Old men, 00:13:06.039 --> 00:13:08.399 women, children, the sick sent to the gas chambers 00:13:08.399 --> 00:13:10.840 immediately. The fit men entered the camp. Of 00:13:10.840 --> 00:13:13.500 those 650 people who left Italy, only 20 would 00:13:13.500 --> 00:13:16.240 ever return. Primo Levi was one of the 20. And 00:13:16.240 --> 00:13:18.519 the destination, of course, was Auschwitz. But 00:13:18.519 --> 00:13:20.419 not the main camp, not Birkenau, which is what 00:13:20.419 --> 00:13:22.720 we usually think. No. Specifically, he was sent 00:13:22.720 --> 00:13:25.759 to Monowitz, also known as Auschwitz III or Buna 00:13:25.759 --> 00:13:27.620 Monowitz. We usually hear about Birkenau, the 00:13:27.620 --> 00:13:29.759 extermination center. What was Monowitz? Monowitz 00:13:29.759 --> 00:13:39.429 was a laborer. The same company that made Zyklon 00:13:39.429 --> 00:13:42.190 B. The very same. They were trying to produce 00:13:42.190 --> 00:13:45.169 synthetic rubber buna because Germany was cut 00:13:45.169 --> 00:13:47.590 off from natural rubber supplies during the war. 00:13:47.750 --> 00:13:50.769 It was a chaotic, freezing, muddy construction 00:13:50.769 --> 00:13:53.590 site where slaves were literally worked to death. 00:13:53.750 --> 00:13:55.789 What was the life expectancy there? For a new 00:13:55.789 --> 00:13:58.799 entrant. Three to four months. That was the calculation. 00:13:59.039 --> 00:14:01.860 You were a consumable resource, you were a unit 00:14:01.860 --> 00:14:04.080 of labor, and when you broke, they replaced you. 00:14:04.519 --> 00:14:07.620 Levi survived 11 months. Okay, this is the core 00:14:07.620 --> 00:14:11.419 of our deep dive. How? How did the delicate chemist 00:14:11.419 --> 00:14:14.980 beat those odds? The outline mentions specific 00:14:14.980 --> 00:14:17.100 factors, and I want to unpack them. It wasn't 00:14:17.100 --> 00:14:19.240 just luck, was it? Though I'm sure that was a 00:14:19.240 --> 00:14:21.440 huge part of it. Levi would be the first to tell 00:14:21.440 --> 00:14:24.529 you that luck was 90 % of it. He was obsessed 00:14:24.529 --> 00:14:26.529 with this idea. If you got an infected blister, 00:14:26.570 --> 00:14:29.049 you died. If a guard didn't like your face, you 00:14:29.049 --> 00:14:30.929 died. If you were standing in the wrong line 00:14:30.929 --> 00:14:33.250 at the wrong time, you died. But within that 00:14:33.250 --> 00:14:36.629 slim margin where personal agency existed, Levi 00:14:36.629 --> 00:14:39.509 had tools that others didn't. He analyzed his 00:14:39.509 --> 00:14:41.769 own survival like a scientist. Let's break these 00:14:41.769 --> 00:14:47.029 down. Huge. Perhaps the most critical early factor. 00:14:47.370 --> 00:14:49.830 Most of the Italian Jews who arrived in Auschwitz 00:14:49.830 --> 00:14:53.169 were completely lost. They were confused, terrified, 00:14:53.450 --> 00:14:57.070 and spoke only Italian. The orders were screamed 00:14:57.070 --> 00:15:00.409 in German. Fast barking orders. Leaks. Ricks. 00:15:00.690 --> 00:15:03.450 Exactly. Left, right, cap off, soup bowl out. 00:15:04.139 --> 00:15:06.500 If you didn't understand, you were beaten, sometimes 00:15:06.500 --> 00:15:08.700 beaten to death for not complying quickly enough. 00:15:08.899 --> 00:15:11.799 And Levi knew German. He knew scientific German. 00:15:11.860 --> 00:15:14.580 In university, he had to read heavy technical 00:15:14.580 --> 00:15:17.240 German chemistry textbooks because that's where 00:15:17.240 --> 00:15:18.960 the best science was happening at the time. It 00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:20.940 wasn't conversational German. He didn't know 00:15:20.940 --> 00:15:23.500 the slang or the swear words, but he understood 00:15:23.500 --> 00:15:25.759 the structure. He could decipher what was being 00:15:25.759 --> 00:15:28.480 shouted. He could anticipate commands. That gave 00:15:28.480 --> 00:15:30.759 him a split -second advantage. A life -saving 00:15:30.759 --> 00:15:33.419 advantage. And crucially, he realized the importance 00:15:33.419 --> 00:15:35.919 of language immediately. He didn't just rely 00:15:35.919 --> 00:15:38.259 on what he knew. He found another prisoner, a 00:15:38.259 --> 00:15:40.899 criminal prisoner, not a Jew, and paid him a 00:15:40.899 --> 00:15:43.159 ration of bread to give him private German lessons. 00:15:43.419 --> 00:15:46.059 He traded food, which was the most valuable thing 00:15:46.059 --> 00:15:48.179 in the universe in that place, for information. 00:15:48.649 --> 00:15:50.830 Because he understood that information was survival. 00:15:51.049 --> 00:15:52.809 If you understand the rules of the game, you 00:15:52.809 --> 00:15:54.950 can navigate the maze. If you don't, you just 00:15:54.950 --> 00:15:57.090 hit a dead end, and that dead end is death. Okay, 00:15:57.169 --> 00:16:00.769 that makes sense. So factor number two, the chemistry 00:16:00.769 --> 00:16:03.509 exam. This sounds like something out of a hallucination. 00:16:03.629 --> 00:16:06.649 A university exam in a death camp. It is one 00:16:06.649 --> 00:16:09.009 of the most surreal scenes in his memoir, If 00:16:09.009 --> 00:16:12.210 This Is a Man. IG Farben, for all its brutality, 00:16:12.470 --> 00:16:15.250 needed actual chemists for the Buna rubber production. 00:16:15.570 --> 00:16:17.909 They were running out of German experts due to 00:16:17.909 --> 00:16:20.870 the war. So in this twisted bureaucratic logic, 00:16:21.029 --> 00:16:23.309 they decided to screen the slave labor force 00:16:23.309 --> 00:16:27.129 for scientific talent. And Levi applies. He applies. 00:16:27.269 --> 00:16:30.129 He is marched into a clean, warm office to face 00:16:30.129 --> 00:16:33.250 a German engineer, a man named Dr. Panwitz. Paint 00:16:33.250 --> 00:16:35.029 the scene for us. The contrast must have been 00:16:35.029 --> 00:16:38.470 insane. Imagine it. Levi is starving. He's filthy, 00:16:38.669 --> 00:16:41.070 covered in lice, wearing striped rags. His head 00:16:41.070 --> 00:16:42.970 is shaved. He's standing in these awful wooden 00:16:42.970 --> 00:16:46.850 clogs. And across the desk is Dr. Panowitz. Clean 00:16:46.850 --> 00:16:49.990 suit, well -fed, manicured hands, probably smelling 00:16:49.990 --> 00:16:52.690 of soap. And Panowitz looks at Levi not as a 00:16:52.690 --> 00:16:55.309 human, but as a specimen. Levi described the 00:16:55.309 --> 00:16:58.470 look as being across the glass window of an aquarium. 00:16:58.789 --> 00:17:01.470 Just complete dehumanization. And he has to take 00:17:01.470 --> 00:17:04.329 a test, a doctoral -level oral exam on organic 00:17:04.329 --> 00:17:07.490 chemistry. Penwitz asks him about polymerization, 00:17:07.650 --> 00:17:10.910 about specific reactions. Levi, despite the hunger 00:17:10.910 --> 00:17:13.710 fogging his brain, snaps into focus. The chemistry 00:17:13.710 --> 00:17:15.509 is still there. He answers the questions. He 00:17:15.509 --> 00:17:17.349 passes. And that changes everything for him. 00:17:17.450 --> 00:17:19.170 It takes a while to kick in, but eventually, 00:17:19.230 --> 00:17:22.569 in November of 1944, just as the harsh Polish 00:17:22.569 --> 00:17:25.339 winter is setting in, he gets moved to the laboratory 00:17:25.339 --> 00:17:28.519 commando. This meant he worked indoors. That's 00:17:28.519 --> 00:17:29.960 the difference between life and death right there. 00:17:30.059 --> 00:17:32.660 I mean, that's everything. It is. The temperature 00:17:32.660 --> 00:17:35.420 outside was minus 10, minus 20 degrees Celsius. 00:17:36.240 --> 00:17:38.680 Working construction in that kills you in weeks. 00:17:38.880 --> 00:17:41.160 Our body just burns itself up trying to stay 00:17:41.160 --> 00:17:44.660 warm. Working in a heated lab allowed his body 00:17:44.660 --> 00:17:48.039 to conserve precious calories. Plus, the lab 00:17:48.039 --> 00:17:50.339 itself was a resource. An incredible resource. 00:17:50.460 --> 00:17:53.250 He could steal things. Like what? There's a famous 00:17:53.250 --> 00:17:55.589 chapter in the periodic table called cerium. 00:17:55.910 --> 00:17:58.829 He found these little rods of iron cerium, alloy 00:17:58.829 --> 00:18:01.009 ferrocerium. They're the things in cigarette 00:18:01.009 --> 00:18:03.269 lighters that make the spark. He stole them, 00:18:03.369 --> 00:18:05.230 smuggled them back to the barracks, ground them 00:18:05.230 --> 00:18:07.630 down into small flints, and traded them on the 00:18:07.630 --> 00:18:10.349 camp's black market for bread. He literally turned 00:18:10.349 --> 00:18:12.650 chemistry into calories. He turned matter into 00:18:12.650 --> 00:18:14.869 life. It's the ultimate proof of his worldview. 00:18:15.089 --> 00:18:17.269 His knowledge of the elements saved his life 00:18:17.269 --> 00:18:19.730 in the most direct way possible. So, language 00:18:19.730 --> 00:18:22.319 and chemistry. Those are his skills. But then 00:18:22.319 --> 00:18:24.079 there's the third factor, and this one isn't 00:18:24.079 --> 00:18:27.400 about skill. It's about humanity. Lorenzo Peron. 00:18:27.960 --> 00:18:31.039 Lorenzo. In a place designed to strip everyone 00:18:31.039 --> 00:18:34.240 of their humanity, Lorenzo was a miracle. He 00:18:34.240 --> 00:18:37.299 wasn't a Jewish prisoner. He was an Italian civilian, 00:18:37.619 --> 00:18:40.140 a bricklayer from a town near Turin, who had 00:18:40.140 --> 00:18:42.500 been brought there as a forced laborer but had 00:18:42.500 --> 00:18:44.960 slightly better privileges. He lived in a different 00:18:44.960 --> 00:18:47.559 barracks, had better food. And he meets Levi. 00:18:47.900 --> 00:18:50.220 He hears Levi and his friend Alberto speaking 00:18:50.220 --> 00:18:53.599 Italian on a construction site. And for six months, 00:18:53.700 --> 00:18:57.000 every single day, Lorenzo brings Levi a hidden 00:18:57.000 --> 00:19:00.099 ration of soup and a slice of bread and a misplaced 00:19:00.099 --> 00:19:02.480 pot. And he didn't ask for anything in return? 00:19:02.799 --> 00:19:04.940 Nothing. In the camp economy, everything was 00:19:04.940 --> 00:19:07.019 a transaction. I give you a spoon, you give me 00:19:07.019 --> 00:19:09.160 your bread ration for tomorrow. I give you this 00:19:09.160 --> 00:19:12.240 shirt, you give me soup. Lorenzo refused to take 00:19:12.240 --> 00:19:14.599 anything. He risked his life every day smuggling 00:19:14.599 --> 00:19:17.140 that soup. He even offered to send a postcard 00:19:17.140 --> 00:19:19.319 to Levi's mother in Italy to let her know he 00:19:19.319 --> 00:19:21.940 was alive. Why did he do it? Levi thought about 00:19:21.940 --> 00:19:24.299 this for the rest of his life. He said that Lorenzo 00:19:24.299 --> 00:19:26.480 saved him not just because of the calories, though 00:19:26.480 --> 00:19:28.619 the extra soup probably kept him from starving, 00:19:28.799 --> 00:19:31.380 but because he reminded Levi that a world outside 00:19:31.380 --> 00:19:34.180 of the camp still existed. A world with normal 00:19:34.180 --> 00:19:36.920 human decency. Yes, that there were still people 00:19:36.920 --> 00:19:40.539 who were pure and whole and not corrupt. Levi 00:19:40.539 --> 00:19:42.859 wrote that thanks to Lorenzo, I managed not to 00:19:42.859 --> 00:19:45.680 forget that I myself was a man. He actually named 00:19:45.680 --> 00:19:47.559 his children after him later, right? He did. 00:19:47.880 --> 00:19:50.480 His daughter, Lisa Lorenzo, and his son, Renzo. 00:19:50.640 --> 00:19:52.920 It was a lifelong tribute to the man who kept 00:19:52.920 --> 00:19:56.720 his soul alive. Lorenzo, sadly, died shortly 00:19:56.720 --> 00:19:59.519 after the war, broken by alcoholism and the trauma 00:19:59.519 --> 00:20:01.859 of what he saw. But Levi carried his name forward. 00:20:02.180 --> 00:20:05.839 So we have language, chemistry, Lorenzo. And 00:20:05.839 --> 00:20:08.859 finally, the fourth factor, the final brutal 00:20:08.859 --> 00:20:12.960 stroke of luck. Which sounds completely counterintuitive. 00:20:12.960 --> 00:20:14.359 Usually if you got sick in Auschwitz, you went 00:20:14.359 --> 00:20:16.079 straight to the gas chamber? Correct. If you 00:20:16.079 --> 00:20:19.279 were useless, you were disposed of. But the timing 00:20:19.279 --> 00:20:22.900 here is everything. It is January 1945. The Russians 00:20:22.900 --> 00:20:24.440 are coming. You can hear the sound of their artillery 00:20:24.440 --> 00:20:27.440 getting closer and closer. And just then, Levi 00:20:27.440 --> 00:20:30.369 falls ill with scarlet fever. He is admitted 00:20:30.369 --> 00:20:33.430 to the Kabe, which was the camp infirmary. Now, 00:20:33.450 --> 00:20:35.470 normally, the Nazis would have killed all the 00:20:35.470 --> 00:20:38.589 sick before fleeing, but everything was in chaos. 00:20:38.890 --> 00:20:42.450 The SS decided to evacuate the camp. They rounded 00:20:42.450 --> 00:20:45.170 up all the healthy prisoners, about 60 ,000 of 00:20:45.170 --> 00:20:47.589 them, and forced them on a death march towards 00:20:47.589 --> 00:20:49.910 Germany in the middle of a blizzard. And Levi. 00:20:50.069 --> 00:20:52.750 He was too sick to walk, so he was left behind 00:20:52.750 --> 00:20:55.210 in the infirmary with a few other sick men, expecting 00:20:55.210 --> 00:20:57.390 the SS to come back at any moment and shoot them 00:20:57.390 --> 00:20:59.950 all. They didn't. They fled. And the marchers? 00:21:00.109 --> 00:21:03.150 Almost everyone on that march died. They froze 00:21:03.150 --> 00:21:05.130 to death. They starved, or they were shot if 00:21:05.130 --> 00:21:07.990 they fell behind. If Levi had been healthy, he 00:21:07.990 --> 00:21:09.309 would have been on that march, and he almost 00:21:09.309 --> 00:21:11.509 certainly would have died. His illness saved 00:21:11.509 --> 00:21:13.970 his life. He watched through the infirmary window 00:21:13.970 --> 00:21:16.369 as his friends marched away into the snow to 00:21:16.369 --> 00:21:19.430 their deaths. So the Red Army arrives January 00:21:19.430 --> 00:21:24.289 27, 1945. Liberation. But not freedom. Not yet. 00:21:24.470 --> 00:21:26.309 This is the part of the story I think fewer people 00:21:26.309 --> 00:21:29.269 know. The war ends, you go home. That's how we 00:21:29.269 --> 00:21:32.390 imagine it. If only. Levi's journey home is the 00:21:32.390 --> 00:21:35.089 subject of his second book, The Truce. And it 00:21:35.089 --> 00:21:37.589 is a bureaucratic, almost Kafkaesque nightmare. 00:21:38.069 --> 00:21:40.690 The Russians liberate the camp, but they don't 00:21:40.690 --> 00:21:42.589 have the resources to just fly everyone home. 00:21:42.750 --> 00:21:45.470 The rail lines are bombed out. Europe is a complete 00:21:45.470 --> 00:21:48.130 wreck. Levi ends up in a Soviet transit camp 00:21:48.130 --> 00:21:51.299 system. And looking at the map. He goes the wrong 00:21:51.299 --> 00:21:54.059 way. He goes massively the wrong way. To get 00:21:54.059 --> 00:21:55.900 from Poland back to Italy, he ends up traveling 00:21:55.900 --> 00:21:59.559 through Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Austria. 00:21:59.819 --> 00:22:02.319 It takes him nine months to get home. An odyssey. 00:22:02.440 --> 00:22:04.980 Truly. It's picaresque. He meets con artists, 00:22:05.160 --> 00:22:07.440 former soldiers, Greek Jews, Russian nurses. 00:22:07.519 --> 00:22:10.400 It was a truce, a pause between the hell of the 00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:12.880 camp and the difficulty of returning to normal 00:22:12.880 --> 00:22:15.839 life. He was seeing Europe in ruins. He was seeing 00:22:15.839 --> 00:22:18.420 the chaos of millions of displaced people. And 00:22:18.420 --> 00:22:21.390 he was starting to heal. Slowly, he learned to 00:22:21.390 --> 00:22:23.529 laugh again. And when he finally walks into Corso 00:22:23.529 --> 00:22:27.769 Riomberto 75 in October 1945. He is unrecognizable. 00:22:27.809 --> 00:22:30.490 He's wearing an old, ragged, Red Army uniform. 00:22:30.670 --> 00:22:33.369 His face is bloated from malnutrition edema. 00:22:33.490 --> 00:22:35.950 His family thought he was dead. And suddenly, 00:22:35.950 --> 00:22:39.109 this ghost walks through the door. And almost 00:22:39.109 --> 00:22:42.539 immediately. He feels this compulsion. He needs 00:22:42.539 --> 00:22:44.759 to tell the story. It was a physical need. He 00:22:44.759 --> 00:22:47.960 described it as a violent impulse. He would get 00:22:47.960 --> 00:22:50.559 on trams in Turin and just start talking to strangers, 00:22:50.680 --> 00:22:53.059 telling them what happened. He needed to unload 00:22:53.059 --> 00:22:55.319 the trauma to bear witness. He starts writing 00:22:55.319 --> 00:22:58.319 furiously. But he also needs a job. He has to 00:22:58.319 --> 00:23:00.680 become a chemist again. Right. He gets a job 00:23:00.680 --> 00:23:03.500 at a paint factory called Duyuko. And this is 00:23:03.500 --> 00:23:06.000 the image I love. By day, he's checking varnish 00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:08.519 formulas, dealing with suppliers, being a manager. 00:23:08.940 --> 00:23:11.539 By night, he's in the factory dormitory scribbling 00:23:11.539 --> 00:23:14.059 on train tickets, scraps of paper, the backs 00:23:14.059 --> 00:23:17.180 of laboratory notes, typing like a maniac. And 00:23:17.180 --> 00:23:19.519 the result of that manic writing is, if this 00:23:19.519 --> 00:23:22.160 is the man, or as it's known in the U .S., survival 00:23:22.160 --> 00:23:24.839 in Auschwitz. A masterpiece. One of the greatest 00:23:24.839 --> 00:23:26.720 books of the 20th century. But the publishers 00:23:26.720 --> 00:23:29.539 didn't think so at first. No. He took it to Einati, 00:23:29.740 --> 00:23:31.960 the big, sophisticated publishing house in Turin. 00:23:32.720 --> 00:23:34.339 Rejected. He tried to get it published in America. 00:23:34.799 --> 00:23:37.200 Little, Brown rejected it. Why? I mean, how could 00:23:37.200 --> 00:23:39.400 they reject that? It seems insane now. You have 00:23:39.400 --> 00:23:42.079 to remember the time. It was 1947. The wounds 00:23:42.079 --> 00:23:44.440 were too fresh. People didn't want to read about 00:23:44.440 --> 00:23:46.259 the death camps yet. They wanted to rebuild, 00:23:46.500 --> 00:23:48.539 to forget. They wanted to look forward, not back 00:23:48.539 --> 00:23:52.019 at the horror. Also, Levi's style wasn't what 00:23:52.019 --> 00:23:54.380 they expected. It wasn't a scream of rage. It 00:23:54.380 --> 00:23:56.980 wasn't melodramatic. It was calm, analytical, 00:23:57.319 --> 00:24:00.880 almost detached. It unnerved people. So it gets 00:24:00.880 --> 00:24:03.480 published by a tiny amateur press. Yes, a man 00:24:03.480 --> 00:24:06.700 named Franco Antonicelli. They printed 2 ,000 00:24:06.700 --> 00:24:09.650 copies. It barely sold. It sat in a warehouse 00:24:09.650 --> 00:24:12.150 in Florence and a bunch of copies got damaged 00:24:12.150 --> 00:24:15.089 in a flood. And for a while, Levi just went back 00:24:15.089 --> 00:24:16.829 to being a chemist. He thought that was that. 00:24:16.970 --> 00:24:19.289 The centaur. That is his symbol for himself. 00:24:19.609 --> 00:24:21.849 Half beast, half man, half chemist, half writer. 00:24:22.089 --> 00:24:24.630 He spent the next 30 years running a paint factory. 00:24:24.869 --> 00:24:26.849 He eventually moved to a company called Siva. 00:24:27.049 --> 00:24:29.549 He rose to be technical director. He was a businessman. 00:24:29.630 --> 00:24:32.470 He dealt with resins, enamels, wire coatings. 00:24:32.509 --> 00:24:34.309 There's a great story about him traveling to 00:24:34.309 --> 00:24:37.230 Germany for business in the 60s. Yes. He would 00:24:37.230 --> 00:24:39.190 have to meet - with German chemical suppliers, 00:24:39.390 --> 00:24:42.289 former IG Farben affiliates sometimes. And he 00:24:42.289 --> 00:24:44.009 made a point of always wearing short -sleeved 00:24:44.009 --> 00:24:47.250 shirts in the meetings. To show the number. 114517. 00:24:48.029 --> 00:24:50.329 Tattooed on his left arm. He wanted them to see 00:24:50.329 --> 00:24:52.569 it. He wouldn't say anything. He would just let 00:24:52.569 --> 00:24:54.490 the number sit there in the boardroom while they 00:24:54.490 --> 00:24:56.750 discussed resin prices. He wanted to see if they 00:24:56.750 --> 00:24:58.609 would react, if they would acknowledge it. And 00:24:58.609 --> 00:25:00.490 did they? Most didn't. They would studiously 00:25:00.490 --> 00:25:03.390 look away. That is a power move. Yeah. Quiet, 00:25:03.390 --> 00:25:06.029 but devastating. It speaks to his character. 00:25:06.170 --> 00:25:09.970 He wasn't seeking revenge. He was seeking recognition, 00:25:10.630 --> 00:25:13.470 acknowledgement of reality. He wanted them to 00:25:13.470 --> 00:25:16.029 know that he knew they knew. Let's talk about 00:25:16.029 --> 00:25:18.049 his writing, specifically the periodic table, 00:25:18.130 --> 00:25:20.309 since we started with it. It's structured in 00:25:20.309 --> 00:25:23.289 such a brilliant, unique way. Every chapter is 00:25:23.289 --> 00:25:25.509 named after an element. It connects the material 00:25:25.509 --> 00:25:29.009 world to memory. Iron is about his friend Sandro, 00:25:29.109 --> 00:25:30.650 the one he hiked the mountains with before the 00:25:30.650 --> 00:25:33.410 capture round. Sandro was strong, resistant, 00:25:33.750 --> 00:25:37.410 pure, like iron. Cerium, as we mentioned, is 00:25:37.410 --> 00:25:39.869 the story of the theft in the camp. And vanadium, 00:25:40.089 --> 00:25:42.890 that one is an incredible story. Vanadium is 00:25:42.890 --> 00:25:45.730 a crazy story. It's years after the war, Levi 00:25:45.730 --> 00:25:47.930 is working at his paint factory, and there's 00:25:47.930 --> 00:25:50.230 a problem with a batch of varnish from a German 00:25:50.230 --> 00:25:53.559 supplier. He writes a letter of complaint. The 00:25:53.559 --> 00:25:56.000 German chemist from the supplier replies, and 00:25:56.000 --> 00:25:59.059 Levi recognizes a specific spelling error. The 00:25:59.059 --> 00:26:02.420 man writes Naftan instead of Nafslin that he 00:26:02.420 --> 00:26:04.859 remembers from the lab in Auschwitz. No way. 00:26:05.059 --> 00:26:07.420 Yes. He realizes the man on the other end of 00:26:07.420 --> 00:26:09.779 the letter is Dr. Müller, a civilian chemist 00:26:09.779 --> 00:26:12.460 who worked in the lab at Monowitz. The element, 00:26:12.700 --> 00:26:15.440 vanadium, becomes the detective key that unlocks 00:26:15.440 --> 00:26:18.059 the past. So what does he do? They start a correspondence. 00:26:18.460 --> 00:26:21.319 Levi confronts him. Were you the Dr. Müller from 00:26:21.319 --> 00:26:23.970 the Buna lab? Muller admits it. He tries to apologize, 00:26:24.049 --> 00:26:26.250 but it's clumsy. He claims he tried to help, 00:26:26.289 --> 00:26:28.569 that he was just a cog in the machine. Levi is 00:26:28.569 --> 00:26:30.990 conflicted. He wants to forgive, but can't fully 00:26:30.990 --> 00:26:33.329 absolve him. They plan to meet in person, but 00:26:33.329 --> 00:26:36.309 before they can, Muller dies. It's a ghost story 00:26:36.309 --> 00:26:39.230 told through chemistry. And then there is The 00:26:39.230 --> 00:26:41.910 Wrench, La Chiavi Estella. This one surprised 00:26:41.910 --> 00:26:43.809 me. It's not about the Holocaust at all. It's 00:26:43.809 --> 00:26:46.069 a celebration. It's his love letter to work. 00:26:46.289 --> 00:26:48.990 It's about a rigger named Fossone who travels 00:26:48.990 --> 00:26:50.950 the world building cranes and suspension bridges. 00:26:51.740 --> 00:26:54.160 Levi believed that loving your work represents 00:26:54.160 --> 00:26:57.079 the best, most concrete approximation of happiness 00:26:57.079 --> 00:26:59.099 on earth. That's a profound statement coming 00:26:59.099 --> 00:27:02.460 from a guy who is a slave laborer. Exactly. Slave 00:27:02.460 --> 00:27:04.779 labor is the absolute opposite of meaningful 00:27:04.779 --> 00:27:08.019 work. It is work designed to destroy you. It 00:27:08.019 --> 00:27:10.039 is digging holes and then filling them back up 00:27:10.039 --> 00:27:13.000 again. But good work solving problems, making 00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:16.019 things that stand up, being competent, that restores 00:27:16.019 --> 00:27:19.599 human dignity. Levi was a chemist. He loved getting 00:27:19.599 --> 00:27:22.059 the formula right. He honored the competence 00:27:22.059 --> 00:27:25.319 of the maker. Okay, we have to move to his darkest 00:27:25.319 --> 00:27:27.059 and perhaps his most important philosophical 00:27:27.059 --> 00:27:30.079 contribution, The Drowned and the Saved. His 00:27:30.079 --> 00:27:32.759 final collection of essays, written in 1986, 00:27:33.160 --> 00:27:34.839 just a year before he died. This is where he 00:27:34.839 --> 00:27:36.579 takes the gloves off. It's much less narrative, 00:27:36.599 --> 00:27:39.099 much more analytical. He analyzes the memory 00:27:39.099 --> 00:27:41.400 of the offense, and he introduces the concept 00:27:41.400 --> 00:27:44.319 of the gray zone. What is the gray zone? This 00:27:44.319 --> 00:27:46.319 is a huge idea, and you really have to get your 00:27:46.319 --> 00:27:48.720 head around it to understand Levi. We tend to 00:27:48.720 --> 00:27:51.160 think of the Holocaust in black and white. Evil 00:27:51.160 --> 00:27:55.039 Nazis, innocent victims, Levi said. Yes, that 00:27:55.039 --> 00:27:57.460 is true on a macro level. The Nazis were the 00:27:57.460 --> 00:28:00.640 aggressors. But inside the camp, inside the lager, 00:28:00.819 --> 00:28:03.700 the line blurred. To survive, prisoners were 00:28:03.700 --> 00:28:05.559 often forced to compromise. You know, the things 00:28:05.559 --> 00:28:08.069 like the kapos. Exactly. The capitalist prisoners 00:28:08.069 --> 00:28:10.309 who are put in charge of other prisoners, often 00:28:10.309 --> 00:28:12.589 brutally, and the sonderkommandos, the Jewish 00:28:12.589 --> 00:28:14.910 prisoners, who are forced to work the gas chambers 00:28:14.910 --> 00:28:18.779 and crematoria. Levi argues that the system was 00:28:18.779 --> 00:28:21.160 diabolical because it was designed to implicate 00:28:21.160 --> 00:28:23.539 the victims in their own destruction. It offered 00:28:23.539 --> 00:28:26.319 tiny privileges, an extra bowl of soup, a better 00:28:26.319 --> 00:28:29.420 pair of boots in exchange for betraying or policing 00:28:29.420 --> 00:28:31.900 your fellow man. And he refuses to judge them. 00:28:31.980 --> 00:28:34.579 He refuses to judge them from the outside. He 00:28:34.579 --> 00:28:36.660 says we in our comfortable living rooms have 00:28:36.660 --> 00:28:38.839 no right to judge the morality of a man who has 00:28:38.839 --> 00:28:41.539 been driven insane by hunger and fear. He says 00:28:41.539 --> 00:28:43.640 if you haven't faced that choice, be silent. 00:28:44.039 --> 00:28:46.990 But he also refuses to call them innocent. They're 00:28:46.990 --> 00:28:49.490 in the gray zone. It's a muddled, tragic space 00:28:49.490 --> 00:28:52.069 where morality collapses under pressure. He also 00:28:52.069 --> 00:28:54.410 had very strong views on the difference between 00:28:54.410 --> 00:28:57.309 the Soviet gulag and the Nazi lager, the concentration 00:28:57.309 --> 00:29:00.470 camps. Oh, very firm on this. In the 80s during 00:29:00.470 --> 00:29:02.529 the Cold War, some historians were trying to 00:29:02.529 --> 00:29:05.329 say, well, Stalin had camps too, so Hitler wasn't 00:29:05.329 --> 00:29:08.730 that unique. Levi said, no, stop. The gulag was 00:29:08.730 --> 00:29:11.849 a slave labor system. It was brutal. Millions 00:29:11.849 --> 00:29:15.740 died. But the purpose was labor. The Nazi lager 00:29:15.740 --> 00:29:18.259 was a death machine. Its purpose was extermination. 00:29:18.359 --> 00:29:20.799 Its purpose was biological annihilation. The 00:29:20.799 --> 00:29:24.180 death rate in the Gulag was around 30%. In Auschwitz, 00:29:24.180 --> 00:29:27.779 for Jews, it was 90 to 98%. The industrialization 00:29:27.779 --> 00:29:31.019 of it, using human ash to pave roads. He said 00:29:31.019 --> 00:29:33.539 that was singular in human history. He was terrified 00:29:33.539 --> 00:29:36.039 of revisionism, of people softening the edges 00:29:36.039 --> 00:29:37.700 of what happened. It's interesting, given all 00:29:37.700 --> 00:29:40.079 this, he never hated the Germans as a collective 00:29:40.079 --> 00:29:42.390 people. He was very precise about this. He said 00:29:42.390 --> 00:29:44.190 hating a whole people is what the Nazis did. 00:29:44.269 --> 00:29:46.430 If he hated all Germans, he would be using their 00:29:46.430 --> 00:29:49.390 logic, their racism. But, and this is a crucial 00:29:49.390 --> 00:29:51.829 distinction, he did not forgive. He didn't forgive 00:29:51.829 --> 00:29:54.210 the culprits. He didn't forgive the culprits. 00:29:54.329 --> 00:29:56.309 And maybe more importantly, he didn't forgive 00:29:56.309 --> 00:29:59.089 the willful ignorance. He was furious with the 00:29:59.089 --> 00:30:01.930 Germans who said, we didn't know, he said. You 00:30:01.930 --> 00:30:04.430 knew enough. You saw the trains leave. You saw 00:30:04.430 --> 00:30:06.390 the smoke from the factories. You smelled it. 00:30:06.490 --> 00:30:09.329 You chose not to look. That silence was their 00:30:09.329 --> 00:30:12.690 crime. This brings us to the end of his life 00:30:12.690 --> 00:30:18.430 and to the mystery. April 11th, 1987. Levi is 00:30:18.430 --> 00:30:21.549 67 years old. He's a celebrated author, a global 00:30:21.549 --> 00:30:24.230 figure. And on that morning, the concierge of 00:30:24.230 --> 00:30:26.329 his apartment building at Corseri and Berto finds 00:30:26.329 --> 00:30:28.690 him at the bottom of the stairwell. He had fallen 00:30:28.690 --> 00:30:30.470 from the third floor landing of the apartment 00:30:30.470 --> 00:30:32.849 he was born in. The coroner ruled it a suicide. 00:30:33.109 --> 00:30:36.529 Yes. And for many, this became the defining tragic 00:30:36.529 --> 00:30:39.819 end to his story. Elie Wiesel famously said, 00:30:39.960 --> 00:30:42.559 Primo Levi died at Auschwitz 40 years later. 00:30:42.740 --> 00:30:44.819 The idea being that the trauma finally caught 00:30:44.819 --> 00:30:47.079 up with him. Right. That the poison of the camp 00:30:47.079 --> 00:30:49.440 had a delayed fuse, and there was evidence for 00:30:49.440 --> 00:30:51.720 it. He was suffering from depression, his elderly 00:30:51.720 --> 00:30:53.940 mother was dying of cancer, he couldn't bear 00:30:53.940 --> 00:30:56.279 to watch her suffer, and he was terrified of 00:30:56.279 --> 00:30:58.799 losing his own mind, his memory. It fit the narrative 00:30:58.799 --> 00:31:01.440 of the tragic survivor. But not everyone agrees. 00:31:02.200 --> 00:31:04.880 Not by a long shot. No. This is where it gets 00:31:04.880 --> 00:31:07.640 incredibly complicated. Many of his close friends 00:31:07.640 --> 00:31:10.359 and experts, like the Oxford sociologist Diego 00:31:10.359 --> 00:31:12.980 Gambetta, argue it was an accident. What's the 00:31:12.980 --> 00:31:15.420 evidence for an accident? Well, first, there 00:31:15.420 --> 00:31:17.660 was no note. Levi was a writer. He explained 00:31:17.660 --> 00:31:20.019 everything. He was a man of meticulous detail. 00:31:20.140 --> 00:31:24.220 To leave no words, that is strange. Second, he 00:31:24.220 --> 00:31:25.980 had plans for the future. He had appointments 00:31:25.980 --> 00:31:28.150 booked. books he was working on. He had just 00:31:28.150 --> 00:31:30.230 bought new shoes that day. And his health. He 00:31:30.230 --> 00:31:32.130 had been complaining of dizziness from a recent 00:31:32.130 --> 00:31:35.089 prostate surgery. The theory is that the stairwell 00:31:35.089 --> 00:31:38.029 railing in his building was famously low. Gambetta 00:31:38.029 --> 00:31:40.309 suggests he might have felt faint, leaned over 00:31:40.309 --> 00:31:42.190 the railing to call out to the concierge below, 00:31:42.470 --> 00:31:45.809 which he often did, and simply lost his balance. 00:31:46.230 --> 00:31:48.609 So why does it matter? Why do people fight over 00:31:48.609 --> 00:31:51.109 this so passionately? Because if it's suicide, 00:31:51.329 --> 00:31:54.049 it feels like a defeat. It feels like the Nazis 00:31:54.049 --> 00:31:56.680 won in the end. Like the poison they injected 00:31:56.680 --> 00:31:59.779 into his soul in 1944 finally killed him in 1987. 00:32:00.359 --> 00:32:03.299 It makes his message of rational survival seem 00:32:03.299 --> 00:32:07.000 undermined. But if it's an accident, he remains 00:32:07.000 --> 00:32:09.140 the rational man who defied them to the very 00:32:09.140 --> 00:32:11.759 end. He's a man with a medical condition who 00:32:11.759 --> 00:32:14.319 fell. I suppose we'll never know for sure. We 00:32:14.319 --> 00:32:16.859 won't. And perhaps we shouldn't let the mystery 00:32:16.859 --> 00:32:19.420 of the death overshadow the clarity of the life's 00:32:19.420 --> 00:32:22.000 work. Whether he jumped or fell, he had already 00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:24.299 won by writing the books. His legacy is massive. 00:32:24.700 --> 00:32:26.640 He's more than just a writer. Martin Amis called 00:32:26.640 --> 00:32:28.960 him the visionary of the Holocaust. But I think 00:32:28.960 --> 00:32:31.180 his legacy is more specific. He taught us to 00:32:31.180 --> 00:32:33.619 look at horror without blinking. And he refused 00:32:33.619 --> 00:32:36.259 false consolation. He was an atheist before, 00:32:36.440 --> 00:32:38.539 during, and after the camp. He didn't find God 00:32:38.539 --> 00:32:40.960 there. He didn't find a happy ending. He found 00:32:40.960 --> 00:32:43.680 truth in all its terrible detail. And he asked 00:32:43.680 --> 00:32:45.200 us to look at ourselves. That feels like the 00:32:45.200 --> 00:32:47.420 real takeaway. That's the provocative thought 00:32:47.420 --> 00:32:50.220 to leave with, isn't it? Levi's work wasn't just 00:32:50.220 --> 00:32:53.930 about 1944. It's about now. He warns us that 00:32:53.930 --> 00:32:56.849 the gray zone is always waiting for us. Every 00:32:56.849 --> 00:32:59.049 time we make a small compromise with power, every 00:32:59.049 --> 00:33:01.029 time we look away from injustice because it's 00:33:01.029 --> 00:33:03.690 inconvenient, every time we choose comfort over 00:33:03.690 --> 00:33:05.849 doing the right thing, we are stepping into that 00:33:05.849 --> 00:33:08.089 zone. There's a line from that TV show Black 00:33:08.089 --> 00:33:11.130 Earth Rising regarding a character dealing with 00:33:11.130 --> 00:33:14.150 intense trauma. They say something like, if I 00:33:14.150 --> 00:33:16.450 choose to attend suicide, I'll take a leaf out 00:33:16.450 --> 00:33:19.289 of Mr. Levi's book. It just shows how deeply 00:33:19.289 --> 00:33:22.200 his end has permeated the culture. for better 00:33:22.200 --> 00:33:24.400 or for worse. It does. It's become a sort of 00:33:24.400 --> 00:33:27.119 grim shorthand, but I prefer to remember him 00:33:27.119 --> 00:33:29.740 as the voice of memory, the chemist who turned 00:33:29.740 --> 00:33:32.279 matter into words and words into a shield against 00:33:32.279 --> 00:33:34.680 oblivion. He made sure we couldn't say we didn't 00:33:34.680 --> 00:33:37.000 know. That is Primo Levi, the chemist in hell. 00:33:37.079 --> 00:33:38.460 Thanks for diving in with us. Thank you.