Holocaust Memorial Day 2023

From Primo Levi's "The Truce." After his abandonment in the concentration camp, accompanied by "a Greek," and walking towards Cracow, Levi spends the night in a barracks "requisitioned by the Russians and full of Italian soldiers." Levi writes: [The Greek] told curious stories about the war; of how after the Germans had broken through the front he had found himself with six of his men ransacking the first floor of a bombed and abandoned villa, searching for provisions; he had heard suspicious noises on the floor below, had cautiously climbed down the stairs with his sten gun at the ready, and had met an Italian sergeant who, with six soldiers, was doing exactly the same thing on the ground floor. The Italian in turn had levelled his gun but the Greek had pointed out that in those conditions a gun fight would have been particularly stupid, that they all found themselves, Greeks and Italians, in the same boat and that he did not see why they should not make a small separate and local peace and continue their researches in their respective occupied territories - to which proposal the Italian had rapidly agreed." Levi continues: "For me too he was a revelation. I knew that he was nothing but a rogue, a merchant, expert in deceit and lacking in scruples, selfish and cold; yet I felt blossom out in him, encouraged by the sympathy of the audience, a warmth, an unsuspected humanity, singular but genuine, rich with promise." I suspect that something has gone slightly awry in the translation with that "blossom out" but I dearly wish some similar humanity could prevail between the unfortunate young conscripts of Russia and Ukraine, and between the politicians fuelling the conflict. I'm not convinced that the promise of Western tanks will make such an outbreak of humanity more likely or happen any sooner