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Perhaps one cannot, what is more one must not, understand what happened, because to understand [the Holocaust] is almost to justify.

Primo Levi

The origins of chemistry were ignoble, or at least equivocal: the dens of the alchemists, their abominable hodgepodge of ideas and language, their confessed interest in gold, their Levantine swindles typical of charlatans and magicians; instead.
PRIMO LEVI

Abominable Alchemist Chemistry Hodgepodge Idea Ignorable Instead Interest Language Least Magician Organ Swindles Wuiivocal
To destroy a man is difficult, almost as difficult as to create one: it has not been easy, nor quick, but you Germans have succeeded. Here we are, docile under your gaze; from our side you have nothing more to fear; no acts of violence, no words of defiance, not even a look of judgment.
PRIMO LEVI

Almost Country Create Destroy Difficult Easy Gaze Nothing Judgement Man Quick Succeed
More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.
PRIMO LEVI

Act Ask Believe Dangerous More Question Ready
Today I think that if for no other reason than that an Auschwitz existed, no one in our age should speak of Providence.
PRIMO LEVI

Age Country Mother People Person Province Reason Speak Think Today
The living are more demanding; the dead can wait.
PRIMO LEVI

Can Dead Demand Live More Wait
Man is a centaur, a tangle of flesh and mind, divine inspiration and dust.
PRIMO LEVI

Centaur Divine Dust Flesh Inspirational Man Mind
I’m a libertine, but it’s not my specialty.
PRIMO LEVI

Libertine Specially
Darwin was not afraid to look deeply into the void. His bold view can be seen as either noble and pessimistic or noble and admirable.
PRIMO LEVI

Admirable Afraid Bold Deeply Drawing Either Look Noble Seen Void
An enemy who sees the error of his ways ceases to be an enemy.
PRIMO LEVI

Cease Enemy Error See Way
Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often loses himself.
PRIMO LEVI

Cloth Deprive Everyone Everything Habit Imagine Love Man Same Short Time House
Each of us bears the imprint of a friend met along the way; In each the trace of each.
PRIMO LEVI

Along Bear Each Friend Imprint Met Trace Way
They sensed that what had happened around them and in their presence, and in them, was irrevocable.
PRIMO LEVI

Around Happen Inevocable Presence Sense Them
I too entered the Lager as a nonbeliever, and as a nonbeliever I was liberated and have lived to this day.
PRIMO LEVI

Day Enter Larger Liberate Live Nonbelievever
There are few men who know how to go to their deaths with dignity, and often they are not those whom one would expect.
PRIMO LEVI

Death Dignity Expect Few Know Men Often Whom
Everyone dreamed past and future dreams, of slavery and redemption, of improbable paradises, of equally mythical and improbable enemies; cosmic enemies, perverse and subtle, who pervade everything like the air.
PRIMO LEVI

Air Dream Equality Everyone Everything Future Mythical Past Perverse Redemption Slavery Suitable
We will not return No one must leave here and so carry to the world, together with the sign impressed on his skin, the evil tidings of what man’s presumption made of man in Auschwitz
PRIMO LEVI

Carry Impress Leave Must Return Sign Skin Together Will World

Perhaps one cannot, what is more one must not, understand what happened, because to understand [the Holocaust] is almost to justify.

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Perhaps one cannot, what is more one must not, understand what happened, because to understand [the Holocaust] is almost to justify.

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