The Drowned and the Saved

For the Law & Order episode, see The Drowned and the Saved (Law & Order).

The Drowned and The Saved

First edition
Author	Primo Levi
Original title	I sommersi e i salvati
Translator	Raymond Rosenthal
Country	Italy
Language	Italian
Publisher	Einaudi (Italian) Summit Books (English)
Publication date	1986
Published in English	1988
Media type	Print (Hardcover) and (Paperback)
Pages	170
ISBN	0-349-10047-0
OCLC	59150087

The Drowned and the Saved (Italian: I sommersi e i salvati) is a book of essays on life in the Nazi extermination camps by Italian-Jewish author and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, drawing on his personal experience as a survivor of Auschwitz (Monowitz). The author's last work, written in 1986, a year before his death, The Drowned and the Saved is an attempt at an analytical approach, whereas If This Is a Man (1947) and The Truce (1963) were autobiographical.

Contents

• The problem of the fallibility of memory
• The techniques used by the Nazis to break the will of prisoners
• The use of language and the (im-)possibility of communication in the camps
• The nature of violence and whether there are different kinds of violence
• The "zona grigia" (gray zone) made of the prisoners that worked for the Nazis in order to save themselves, controlling their fellow prisoners
• Jean Améry and the intellectuals in Auschwitz
• Letters from Germans and Levi's replies

Miscellaneous

The title of one essay (The Grey Zone) was used as title for the film The Grey Zone (2001), which is based on a book by Miklós Nyiszli.

See also

• The Holocaust in popular culture