The Truce

Levi and the other survivors are taken through the main camp at Auschwitz. The survivors receive a bath; unlike the baths they received in the Lager, this bath is not intended to humiliate them. Levi senses in the Russian soldiers’ actions a desire to “strip [the survivors] of the vestiges of [their] former life” (194). Levi is unloaded from the cart, bathed, and treated by Soviet nurses, hearing Russian being spoken for the first time. He does not understand the language but begins to recognize words and phrases.

Some survivors are too traumatized to accept help from the nurses, who do what they can. Levi and his friend Charles watch with “compassion and horror” (195). They are given clothes and a haircut. Since Levi is ill, he is taken to the infirmary, which is “overflowing with invalids” (196). Even the doctors are ill; there is perhaps one doctor for every 800 patients.

Levi is placed in a ward with 20 people as he is gripped by a fever. Around him, many people die. This is “the last great sweep of the scythe” (197), as those whose health was obliterated in the Lager finally succumb to their suffering. Among the patients on the ward is a young child named Hurbinek, about whom very little is known. He has no parents or associates. He is possibly three years old, he cannot speak, and he is paralyzed from the waist down. A Hungarian teenager named Henek, also being treated on the ward, tries to teach Hurbinek to speak. Hurbinek struggles to speak. He dies in March 1945, “free but not redeemed” (198).

Levi describes Henek, who had been imprisoned in the children’s block at the Birkenau camp and had been a Kapo (a prisoner who colludes with the guards in exchange for preferential treatment). Henek, as a Kapo, has no remorse about his role in children being sent for medical experiments or executions. He believes that he did what he needed to do to survive.

Levi describes the other children who have been liberated from the camps. These children, many of whom grew up in the extermination camps, struggle to function in social groups. They are introverted and erratic, and their bodies are often poorly-developed. They exhibit signs of malnourishment and trauma. The patients in Levi’s ward are treated by two Polish nurses, helped by a young widow from Trieste named Frau Vita, who works with a “frantic compassion” (204). Levi describes the deaths of two young people named Andri and Antoine; though he knew them for only 10 days after the liberation, he felt as though he had known them for centuries. Of the 550 people who entered the camps at the same time as Levi, almost all are dead. The children and old people were killed immediately. Of the women, only five survive.

Levi spends a month recovering in the ward. To recover, he feels, he must get up and walk. When the doctor notes the end of Levi’s scarlet fever, Levi is allowed to leave. He fashions makeshift clothes from whatever he can find and bids farewell to the people of the ward. He leaves the ward and, in spite of his frail condition, he is immediately recruited and made to clear snow. Levi runs away from his duties and throws away his shovel. The following day, he joins a Russian transport convoy and is taken to a “mysterious transit camp” (208). During this journey, he meets a Greek man named Mordo Nahum. The Russian soldiers will not, or cannot, tell the survivors where they are being taken. Levi finds himself bound to his new Greek associate “for an unforgettable week of vagabondage” (209).

Mordo is unremarkable in appearance. He speaks a number of languages, including Italian, and is recovering from an unspecified illness. With two languages in common, he and Levi strike up a bond as they travel toward Cracow. They will be placed in a camp near Katowice. The train ride is slow and exhausting. At times, the survivors are given substantial amounts of food by generous people. At other times, they must fend for themselves. Mordo carries with him a “famous bundle” (214). When he goes into partnership with Levi, the bundle is given to Levi to carry. Since Levi has no shoes, Mordo criticizes him, saying that “a man who has no shoes is a fool” (215). Mordo is a fiercely intelligent and determined man. He knows every scheme and means of survival, teaching his ways to Levi.

In Cracow, they search for opportunities to warm and feed themselves. Finding a group of Italians, Mordo charms them with his conversation. Levi knows that Mordo is a “rogue” (218) who will trick and scam people, but he likes the Greek. Work, to Mordo, is an essential part of life, though he defines “work” as anything that makes him money, including illegal activities. Mordo refuses to engage in servile work; he believes that manual labor is reprehensible. Any activity that does not generate a profit is, to Mordo, horrifying.

In the market of Cracow, they buy and sell shirts. Mordo is the principal source of profit, though he offers his food to Levi to share. Mordo never speaks of his two years in Auschwitz. The survivors board a train to Katowice, where camps are being set up for displaced peoples of various nations. Speaking to Polish people, Levi feels unsure as to whether the war is even really over. Though he does not speak Polish, he is warned not to speak German too loudly, lest people think that he is German. Mordo and Levi part ways, though Levi notes that he will see him again in the future.

The Katowice transit camp is situated near the town of Bogucice. The camp had been used by the Germans as a forced labor mining operation, now repurposed and operated by the Russian soldiers. The camp is populated by people from many different countries and run by soldiers and doctors, who live “in harmony, without timetable or regulations” (231). The war is about to end, Levi learns, though no one is yet aware of the Cold War, which will break out afterward between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies. The Italians in the camp have a leader, Rovi, who nominated himself to represent his fellow countrymen. He loves “power for its own sake” (232) and surrounds himself with a court of likeminded fools. He is “benevolently tolerated” (233) by the Russians and Italians.

Levi meets Leonardo at the camp. Leonardo is now working as a doctor in the improved infirmary, which is stocked with medicines looted from German supplies. In Auschwitz, Levi learned that he should never be a “nobody” (235), so he offers his services as an interpreter and a pharmacist in the infirmary. He is not a doctor, but he is a chemist. The infirmary is run by a middle-aged military nurse named Marya Fyodorovna, who has many bureaucratic demands. The lists she makes Levi write, however, often seem to serve no purpose. Since Levi does not speak Russian, he is aided in his translation and bureaucracy by an 18-year-old named Gallina. In front of Gallina, Levi is “painfully conscious of [his] miserable appearance” (237). They spend weeks working alongside one another and strike up a friendship. When the war ends in May, Gallina returns home to Russia.

Levi helps Leonardo in the surgery. He also helps to check the other survivors for lice. During this time, Levi meets pickpockets and criminals who were sent to the concentration camps. As someone with a job at the camp, Levi is entitled to better food. His time in Auschwitz has left him with an “uncontrollable hunger” (241) which is largely psychological, so that no ration ever seems enough. He is also permitted to leave the camp and explore the surrounding area. Being able to roam freely feels particularly liberating after so long spent “in a frame of barbed wire” (242).