Volume 33, Number 1 · January 30, 1986
Last Christmas of the War
By Primo Levi, Translated by Ruth Feldman
In more ways than one, Monowitz, a part of Auschwitz, was not a typical camp. The barrier that separated us from the world—symbolized by the double barbedwire fence—was not hermetic, as elsewhere. Our work brought us into daily contact with people who were 'free,' or at least less slaves than we were: technicians, German engineers and foremen, Russian and Polish workers, English, American, French, and Italian prisoners of war. Officially they were forbidden to talk to us, the pariahs of KZ (Konzentrations-Zentrum), but the prohibition was constantly ignored, and what's more, news from the free world reached us through a thousand channels. In the factory trash bins we found copies of the daily papers (sometimes two or three days old and rain-soaked) and in them we read with trepidation the German bulletins: mutilated, censored, euphemistic, yet eloquent. The Allied POWs listened secretly to Radio London, and even more secretly brought us the news, and it was exhilarating. In December 1944 the Russians had entered Hungary and Poland, the English were in the Romagna, the Americans were heavily engaged in the Ardennes but were winning in the Pacific against Japan.
Feature, 3076 words
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