The Drowned and the Saved

The Drowned and the Saved is a book of essays on life in the Nazi Vernichtungslager (extermination camps) by Italian-Jewish author and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, drawing on his personal experience as an inmate of Auschwitz. Whereas If This is a Man was autobiographical The Drowned and the Saved is an attempt at an analytical approach. The problem of the fallibility of memory, the techniques used by the Nazis to break the will of prisoners, the use of language in the camps and the nature of violence are all studied.