Primo Levi (1910-1987) was taken to Auschwitz in 1943 after joining the Italian partisans and being betrayed. One day whilst recovering in the sanatorium he witnesses the selection of patients to be led to the gas chambers. They include a man he’d recently befriended, called Schmulek.

But destiny ordained that I was soon to understand the word “selection”, and at the expense of Schmulek himself. That evening the door opened, a voice shouted ‘Achtung!’ and every sound died out to give way to a leaden silence.

Two SS men enter (one of them has many chevrons, perhaps he is an officer?). One can hear the steps in the hut as if it was empty; they speak to the chief doctor, and he shows them a register, pointing here and there. The officer notes down in the book. Schmulek touches my knee:

‘Pass auf, pass auf,’ keep your eyes open.

The officer, followed by the doctor, walks round in silence, nonchalantly, between the bunks; he has a switch in his hand, and flicks at the edge of a blanket hanging down from a top bunk., the patient hurries to adjust it.

One has a yellow face; the officer pulls away his blankets, he starts back, the officer touches his belly, says, ‘Gut, gut,” and moves on.

Now he looks at Schmulek; he brings out the book, checks the number of the bed and the number of the tattoo, I see it all clearly from above: he has drawn a cross beside Schmulek’s number. Then he moves on.

The day after, in place of the usual group of patients who have recovered, two distinct groups are led out. The first have been shaved and sheared and have had a shower. The second left as they are, with long hair and without being treated, without a shower. Nobody said good-bye to the latter, nobody gave them messages for healthy comrades.

Schmulek formed part of this group.

When Schmulek left, he gave me his spoon and knife.

If This is a Man page 59