The 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, two days ago now, prompted thoughts of Primo Levi's If This Is A Man: Remembering Auschwitz, which I read four or five years ago but which remains vivid in my memory.
One of the aspects of Levi's writing that had such a strong effect on me was the way he portrayed the intimate, personal, horrifying details of the Holocaust. The full reality of millions of people imprisoned, executed, or worked to death is so vast that it causes an emotional numbness; I simply shut down, because to feel in the face of so much suffering would be too overwhelming.
But reading Levi's description of life in Auschwitz, one man's experience makes the Holocaust more terrifying to me than the staggering death count:
