The Drowned and the Saved

On page 53 of Primo Levi’s The Drowned and the Saved he stated, “Conceiving and organizing the squads was National Socialism’s most demonic crime.” Levi referring to the squads as Special Squads; they were predominately made up of Jewish people that were hand-picked based upon physical strength but also by a deep study of physiognomies (51). When the convoys arrived, the SS would pick new members for their squad, and would not hesitate to eliminate any person who refused or showed resistance to perform those duties. The special squad was in charge of removing corpses from gas chambers and making sure order was maintained on the platforms. Levi said, “From another point of view, one is stunned by this paroxysm of perfidy and hatred: it must be the Jews that put the Jews in the ovens; it must be shown that the Jews, the subrace, the submen, bow to any and all humiliation, even to destroying themselves (52).I believe Levi felt the worst of this demonic crime was that, “this institution represented an attempt to shift unto others- specifically, the victims- the burden of guilt, so they were deprived of even the solace of innocence” (53). Not only were the Jews being subjected to these awful hate crimes, but they were also asked to commit them to other members of their “race.” Besides killing the Jews in mass numbers, the Nazi’s demoralized them one step further, causing them to commit those crimes. Not only was the killing a treacherous thing to do, subjecting these people to do this treacherous work caused their crime to go to another level.