The Drowned and the Saved

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1986

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Preface

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-Conclusion

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

The Tattoo

Upon arrival to the camps, every prisoner, no matter how young or old, received a tattoo of his or her registration number. Levi describes this process as “traumatic” (132) though it was not very painful; the trauma resulted from the dehumanizing impact of the tattoo, which declared the prisoner no longer worthy of a name, only a series of letters and numbers. As well, the tattoo was a visible representation of every prisoner’s status as an “other,” a status that predicted the destruction of prisoners who violated Hitler’s vision of a master race. Also difficult for some prisoners was the fact that the tattoo was a religious infraction. The Mosaic law forbids tattoos as they mark only barbarians, not Jews.

The Cattle Cars

When they were deported, prisoners traveled to the Lagers by train in cars intended for moving livestock to market. For some prisoners, the journey lasted two weeks, and during this time, the prisoners were first introduced to the humiliating existence that awaited them at the camps. The cattle cars were simply empty metal boxes that lacked furnishings and lavatories, and they were usually overcrowded with people of all ages and states of health. The cattle cars provided for the prisoners represented their later dehumanization by other means, once imprisoned. Levi compares many of the cruelties he and other prisoners endured to acts that diminished their humanity and made them feel like animals.

Rumkowski’s Coin

Levi recalls finding a coin in his pocket after he was liberated from Auschwitz, and he traces the origins of this coin back to the Polish city of Lodz, renamed Litzmannstadt by the Nazis. This coin was a remnant of the currency minted by Chaim Rumkowski, the President of the Lodz ghetto for four years. Levi tells Rumkowski’s story as a cautionary tale that warns against judging an individual who collaborated with the Nazis too quickly; Rumkowski was power-hungry and dictatorial, but not monstrous; he certainly was not exactly like “a common man” (68), but Levi asserts that “many around us are like him” (68) so we must suspend judgment. Rumkowski lost sight of the fact that “outside the ghetto reign the lords of death” (71) and that no matter his position of power within the ghetto, he was still a Jew. The coin serves as a reminder to Levi that all humans are fragile, no matter how safe and protected they might feel at any given moment.